1 


The  Ancient  Lowly 


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A  History  of  the  Ancient  Working  People  from  the 
Earliest  Known  Period  to  the  Adoption 
of  Christianity  by  Constantine 


VOLUME  I 


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BY 

C.  OSBORNE  WARD 

W  2. 


CHICAGO 

CHARLES  H.  KERR  &  COMPANY 


CO-OPERATIVE 


Copyright,  1888 
By  C.  Osborne  Ward 
FIFTH  EDITION 


PEESS  OF 

JOHN  F.  HIGGINS 

CHICAGO 


Publisher’s  Note  to  Fourth  Edition 


The  first  editions  of  Osborne  Ward’s  great  work  were 
printed  and  circulated  privately,  because  no  capitalist 
publishing  house  would  take  the  responsibility  for  so 
revolutionary  a  book,  and  no  socialist  publishing  house 
existed. 

Now,  nearly  twenty  years  after  the  first  publication  of 
the  book,  its  publication  has  been  taken  over  by  a  co¬ 
operative  publishing  house  owned  by  sixteen  hundred  so¬ 
cialist  clubs  and  individual  socialists.  A  systematic  effort 
will  now  for  the  first  time  be  made  to  give  this  author’s 
works  the  wide  circulation  they  deserve. 

Osborne  Ward’s  contribution  to  the  history  of  the 
working  class  movement  is  unique,  and  its  tremendous 
value  is  only  beginning  to  be  appreciated.  In  his  chosen 
field,  the  period  of  ancient  civilization  covered  by  histories 
and  inscriptions,  he  speaks  with  an  authority  based  on  a 
minute  and  comprehensive  knowledge  of  his  subject. 

The  case  is  different  when  he  comments  on  another 
field  of  investigation,  and  it  is  only  fair  to  warn  the  read  r 
that  the  author’s  statements  on  page  38,  which  reappear 
in  various  forms  elsewhere  in  the  book,  are  now  known 
to  bq  erroneous.  The  researches  of  Lewis  H.  Morgan  in 
“Ancient  Society,”  popularized  by  Frederick  Engels  in  his 
“Origin  of  the  Family,  Private  Property  and  the  State,” 
have  stood  the  test  of  a  generation  of  criticism,  and  they 
show  conclusively  that  a  communist  form  of  society  ex¬ 
isted  for  ages  before  the  beginning  of  the  era  described 
so  graphically  in  the  present  work. 

CHARLES  H.  KERR. 


January,  1907. 


PBEFACB. 


Hie  author  of  this  volume  is  aware  that  a  strong 
opposition  may  set  in  and  perhaps  for  a  time,  ob¬ 
ject  to  the  thoughts  and  the  facts  which  it  portrays. 

Much  of  its  contents  is  new.  The  ideas  that  lay 
at  the  bottom  of  the  ancient  competitive  system, 
though  in  their  day  thoroughly  understood,  have  been 
so  systematically  attacked  and  gnawed  away  during 
our  nearly  2,000  years’  trial  of  the  new  institution, 
that  men  now,  no  longer  comprehend  them.  The 
whole  may  strike  the  reader  as  news.  Much  of  it 
indeed,  reads  like  a  revelation  from  a  sealed  book; 
and  we  may  not  at  first  be  able  to  comprehend  it  as 
a  natural  effect  of  a  cause. 

The  introduction  of  Christianity  was  fought,  and 
for  a  long  time  resisted  by  the  laboring  element  it¬ 
self  ;  solely  on  the  ground  that  it  seriously  interfered 
with  idol,  amulet,  palladium  and  temple  drapery 
manufacture.  As  shown  in  the  chapter  on  “Image- 
makers,”  there  were  organized  trades,  whose  labor 
and  means  of  obtaining  a  living  were  entirely  confined 
to  their  skill  in  producing  for  the  pagan  priesthood 


PREFACE. 


these  innumerable  images  and  paraphernalia  of  wor¬ 
ship.  Indeed,  the  ultimate  introduction  of  certain 
unmistakable  forms  of  idol  worship  to  be  found  lin¬ 
gering  in  the  so-called  Christianity  to-day,  must  be 
considered  as  having  been  partly  motived  by  the  re¬ 
sistance  of  trades  unions  against  any  change  which 
would  result  in  depriving  themselves  and  their  babes 
of  bread.  This  has  been  a  potent  hindrance  to  the 
ever  growing  but  imperceptible  realization  of  the 
social  revolution. 

The  great  strikes  and  uprisings  of  the  working 
people  of  the  ancient  world  are  almost  unknown  to 
the  living  age.  It  matters  little  how  accounts  of  five 
immense  strike-wars,  involving  destruction  of  prop¬ 
erty  and  mutual  slaughter  of  millions  of  people  have 
been  suppressed,  or  have  otherwise  failed  to  reach 
us; — the  fact  remains  that  people  are  absolutely  ig¬ 
norant  of  those  great  events.  A  meagre  sketch  of 
Spartacus  may  be  seen  in  the  encyclopedias,  but  it  is 
always  ruined  and  its  interest  pinched  and  blighted 
by  being  classed  with  crime,  its  heroes  with  crimi¬ 
nals,  its  theme  with  desecration.  Yet  Spartacus  was 
one  of  the  great  generals  of  history ;  fully  equal  to 
Hannibal  and  Napoleon,  while  his  cause  was  much 
more  just  and  infinitely  nobler,  his  life  a  model  of 
the  beautiful  and  virtuous,  his  death  an  episode  of 
surpassing  grandeur. 

Still  more  strange  is  it,  that  the  great  ten-years’ 
war  of  Eunus  should  be  unknown.  He  martialed  at 
one  time,  an  army  of  two  hundred  thousand  soldiers. 
He  manoeuvred  them  and  fought  for  ten  full  years  for 
liberty,  defeating  army  after  army  of  Rome.  Why  is 
the  world  ignorant  of  this  fierce,  epochal  rebellion ! 


PREFACE. 


Ix 


Almost  the  whole  matter  is  passed  over  in  silence  by 
our  histories  of  Rome.  In  these  pages  it  will  be  read 
as  news;  yet  should  a  similar  war  rage  in  our  day, 
against  a  similar  condition  of  slavery,  its  cause  would 
not  only  be  considered  just,  but  the  combatants  would 
have  the  sympathy  and  moral  support  of  the  civilized 
world.  The  story  of  this  wonderful  workman  is  news. 

The  great  system  of  labor  organization  explained  in 
these  pages  must  likewise  be  regarded  as  a  chapter  of 
news.  The  portentous  fact  has  lain  in  abeyance  cen¬ 
tury  after  century,  with  the  human  family  in  profound 
ignorance  of  an  organization  of  trades  and  other  labor 
unions  so  powerful  that  for  hundreds  of  years  they  un¬ 
dertook  and  successfully  conducted  the  business  of 
manufacture,  of  distribution,  of  purveying  provisions  to 
armies,  of  feeding  the  inhabitants  of  the  largest  cities 
in  the  world,  of  inventing,  supplying  and  working  the 
huge  engines  of  war,  and  of  collecting  customs  and 
taxes — tasks  confided  to  their  care  by  the  state. 

Our  civilization  has  a  blushingly  poor  excuse  for  its 
profound  ignorance  of  these  facts ;  for  the  evidences 
have  existed  from  much  before  the  beginning  of  our 
era — indeed  the  fragments  of  the  ravaged  history  were 
far  less  broken  and  the  recorded  annals  much  fresher, 
more  numerous  and  less  mutilated  than  the  relics 
which  the  author  with  arduous  labor  and  pains-taking, 
has  had  at  command  in  bringing  them  to  the  surface. 
Besides  the  records  that  have  come  to  us  thus  broken 
and  distorted  by  the  wreckers  who  feared  the  moral 
blaze  of  literature,  there  were,  in  all  probability,  thou¬ 
sands  of  inscriptions  then,  where  but  dozens  remain 
now  to  be  consulted;  and  they  are  growing  fewer  and 
dimmer  as  their  value  rises  higher  in  the  estimation 


X 


PREFACE. 


of  a  thinking,  appreciative,  gradually  awakening  world. 

The  author  is  keenly  aware  that  certain  critics  will 
complain  of  his  dragging  religion  so  prominently  for¬ 
ward  that  the  work  is  spoiled.  The  defense  is,  that 
though  our  charming  histories  from  a  point  of  view 
of  brilliant  events,  such  as  daring  deeds  of  heroes,  bat¬ 
tles  and  bloodshed,  may  be  found  among  the  ancients 
without  encountering  much  of  a  religious  nature,  yet 
such  is  not  the  case  in  the  lesser  affairs  of  ancient  so¬ 
cial  and  political  life.  The  state,  city  and  family  were 
themselves  a  part  of  the  ancient  religion  and  were  a 
part  of  its  property.  Priests  were  public  officers. 
Home  life  of  the  nobles  was  in  constant  conformity 
with  the  ritual.  The  organizations  of  labor  were  so 
closely  watched  by  the  jealous  law  that  they  were 
obliged  to  assume  a  religious  attitude  they  did  not  feel 
in  order  to  escape  being  suppressed.  A  long  list  of 
what  we  in  our  time  consider  honorable,  business-like 
doings,  was  rated  as  blasphemy  against  the  gods  and 
punished  with  death. 

Nearly  all  of  the  idolatry,  with  its  attendant  super¬ 
stition  and  nympholepsy,  its  giants  and  prodigies,  its 
notions  of  elysium  and  tartar  us ,  its  quaking  genuflex¬ 
ions,  its  bloody  sacrifices  and  its  gladiatorial  wakes, 
had  their  real  origin  in  the  torture  of  the  menials  who 
delved,  and  in  the  rewards  of  the  favored  ones  who 
banqueted  on  the  riches  which  flowed  from  unpaid  la¬ 
bor;  and  nearly  all  the  iconoclasm  of  the  later  soph¬ 
ists  may  perhaps  be  traced  to  an  organized  resistance 
of  the  working  people  of  pre-christian  days.  These 
seemingly  curious,  if  not  extraordinary  truths  will,  we 
are  confident,  be  made  clear  to  the  intelligent,  careful 
reader  of  these  pages ;  and  in  this  humble  hope,  the 


PREFACE. 


it 

author  has  set  them  forth  as  an  indispensable  begin¬ 
ning  to  those  who  would  logically  and  correctly  under¬ 
stand  the  great  problem  of  labor  as  it  is  to-day. 

As  rightly  mentioned  by  Bancroft  and  others  occu¬ 
pied  in  the  collection  and  study  of  monumental  archae¬ 
ology,  there  is  often  a  readiness  among  the  degenerate 
natives  to  ingeniously  imitate  and  palm  off  for  genu¬ 
ine,  numbers  of  fraudulent  counterfeit  relics  upon  the 
unsuspecting  and  credulous  wonder-hunters.  This, 
however,  is  with  us,  in  our  scope  of  research,  placed 
beyond  suspicion.  Most  of  the  slabs  we  mention  have 
already  been  lying  unobserved,  on  their  original  sites 
or  in  by-nooks  of  the  museums  of  their  own  countries, 
for  hundreds  of  years  ;  but  they  have  long  since  been 
recorded,  catalogued  and  even  numbered  in  dingy  old 
books  and  manuscripts,  the  importance  of  their  grim 
inscriptions  having  been  little  understood  by  the  capa¬ 
ble  epigraphists  themselves.  Besides,  no  interest  hav¬ 
ing  ever  been  elicited  on  subjects  of  which  they  are  so 
suggestive,  there  has  been  no  lively  demand  for  them, 
even  as  curiosities.  They  are  genuine. 

The  author  may  sum  up  these  prefatory  remarks  with 
a  word  on  the  general  lesson  taught  by  this  volume;  it 
being  one  of  the  first  histories  yet  compiled  and  written 
exclusively  from  a  standpoint  of  social  science.  That 
the  u  still  small  voice”  meant  the  ever  suppressed  yet  ever 
living,  struggling,  co-operating  and  mutually  support¬ 
ing  majorities,  is  made  self-suggestive  without  forsaking 
history.  The  phenomenal  fact  is  moreover  brought  out, 
that  the  present  movement  whose  most  radical  wing 
loudly  disclaims  Christianity,  is  nevertheless  building 
exactly  upon  the  precepts  of  that  faith,  as  it  was  told  to 
us  and  taught  us  by  Jesus  Christ ;  whatever  may  or  may 


PREFACE. 


•  • 

Xll 

nut  have  been  borrowed  by  His  school  from  the  immense 
social  organization  of  His  own  and  preceeding  ages. 

Modern  greed  with  its  class  hatreds,  individualisms. 
aristocracy,  its  struggle  for  personal  wealth,  dangerous, 
defiant  in  our  faith  and  in  our  political  economy,  is  not 
Christianity  at  all;  it  is  the  ancient  evil  still  lingering 
in  the  roots  of  the  gradually  decaying  paganism  that  ap¬ 
pears  to  remain  for  the  labor  movement  to  smother  and 
at  last  uproot  and  completely  annihilate. 

One  thing  must  be  solemnly  set  forth  as  a  very  sug¬ 
gestive  hint  to  modern  anarchists,  however  honest  their 
impulses.  The  historical  facts  are  that  the  great  strikes, 
rebellions  and  social  wars — if  we  are  permitted  to  except 
those  of  Drimakos  and  the  strike  of  the  20,000  from  the 
silver  mines  of  Laurium  in  Attica — all  turned  out  disas¬ 
trously  for  the  general  cause.  The  punishments  meted 
out  to  the  strikers  and  insurgents  of  the  working  class 
after  their  overthrow  by  the  Homans,  as  in  the  rebellions 
of  Eunus,  of  Athenion,  of  Spartacus,  of  every  one  we 
have  treated  in  this  book,  with  but  the  above  exceptions, 
was  bloody,  revengeful  and  exterminatory  to  the  last  de¬ 
gree.  An  ancient  author  whom  we  quote,  gives  the  aggre¬ 
gate  number  crucified  at  something  more  than  a  million. 
Crassus  and  Pompey  alone  crucified  over  6,000  working¬ 
men  on  the  Appian  Way  as  examples  of  the  awful  blood- 
wreaking  to  be  expected  from  Roman  military  justice. 
Twenty  thousand  were  similarly  massacred  at  Enna  and 
Tauromanion.  These  unscrupulous  deeds  of  retribution 
that  went  far  toward  annihilating  the  ancient  civilization 
by  stimulating  a  blood-thirsting  craze  in  a  long  succes¬ 
sion  of  Roman  emperors,  completely  extinguished  all 
hopes  of  the  workingmen  for  the  achievement  of  liberty 
by  violent  means. 


PREFACE 

TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 

The  author  of  the  Ancient  Lowly,  on  presenting  to 
the  public  his  first  and  incomplete  edition,  felt  that  it 
was  an  experiment.  It  was  a  mass  of  facts,  withheld  for 
many  ages  from  the  human  race — some  that  had  been 
suppressed — and  his  natural  conjecture  that  there  is  still 
a  desire  to  cover  and  conceal  them  was  verified  by  a  gen¬ 
eral  refusal  on  the  part  of  publishing  firms,  to  touch  it. 
He  published  it  himself.  Large  numbers  of  letters  flow¬ 
ing  in  from  kind-hearted  readers  at  every  quarter,  and 
a  delightful,  perhaps  overwrought  expression  of  thanks 
and  sympathy  in  form  of  sermons,  newspaper  reviews  and 
lecture  themes  has  been  a  consolation  that  cannot  be 
measured  by  this  poor  expression  of  gratitude.  Let  his 
loving  answer  and  assurance  to  them  all  be,  that  the  book 
shall  not  fall  into  vandal  hands  for  money  or  for  price; 
but  the  naked  truth  shall  be  unstintedly  offered  to  its 
generous  and  appreciative  readers  who  thus  announce 
themselves,  after  ages  of  agitation,  fully  prepared  to 
accept. 

Considerable  disappointment  has  been  gently  hinted, 
that  the  author  broke  off  abruptly  without  writing  a  chap¬ 
ter  of  conclusions.  The  actually  written  twenty-fourth 
chapter  promised  in  the  table  of  contents,  was  prudential- 
ly  omitted  in  the  first  edition.  Conclusions  are  deviations 
from  the  historian’s  compass — this  is  one  explanation. 
A  stronger  one  is,  that  the  general  conviction  which  over¬ 
takes  the  student,  on  studying  the  ancient  working  people, 
is  of  a  nature  so  radical  as  to  be  distasteful  to  many  readers. 

One  curious  conclusion  is,  that  the  modern  and  correct 
doctrine  of  nationalizing  the  tools  of  labor  was  actually 
carried  out,  almost  to  perfection,  especially  in  the  cele¬ 
brated  Spartan  state.  But  alas!  the  awful  incongruity  of 
its  system  was,  that  human  beings  as  slaves,  were  them¬ 
selves  bodily  those  nationalized  tools!  though  treated  with 


PREFACE. 


xiv 

worse  contempt  of  feeling  than  we  have  for  machines  pro¬ 
pelled  by  motors  instead  of  whips ;  and  the  demand  of  the 
nationalists  or  socialists  to-day  is  in  some  points  of  princi¬ 
ple,  to  return  to  the  nationalization  of  Lycurgus,  only  with 
the  chattel-slave  tools  and  wage-slave  tools  substituted,  01 
supplanted  by  the  inanimate  labor-saving  implements  this 
much-abused  workman  has  invented,  constructed  and  re 
duplicated  for  a  higher  civilization.  When  this  shall  havfc 
been  accomplished  there  will  be  an  exact  social  equality 
and  a  status  of  positive  equities — a  vast  and  beneficent  rev 
olution !  Surely,  under  these  considerations,  the  working 
masses,  the  "two-thirds  majority,”  can  afford  to  crowd  on¬ 
ward  until  they  reach  the  ambrosial  gardens,  become  them- 
lelves  masters  and  re- enjoy  the  symposium,  in  a  region  of 
equitable  distribution  and  plentitude,  the  "mansion  of  the 
blessed,”  longed  for  in  those  earlier  ages. 

Another  conclusion  arrived  at  from  the  facts  in  history, 
and  explained  in  this  terminal  chapter  is,  that  the  ancient 
rebellions,  although  fearfully  disastrous,  as  mentioned  by 
way  of  warning  in  our  preface  to  the  first  edition,  were, 
under  the  circumstances,  j  ust.  W orkingmen  who  rebelled 
and  bravely  fought  and  lost,  had  no  other  friend  to  appeal 
to  but  their  own  strong  arms ;  and  looking  back  upon  their 
sufferings  and  their  magnificent  resistance,  we  clearly  see 
that  they  did  not  lose  after  all.  They  won,  though  they 
fell  in  myriads — a  martyrdom,  nobler  and  happier  than 
was  their  crucial  life  from  which  such  a  death  was  triumph¬ 
ant  relief — for  by  their  fall  they  taught  a  lesson  to  an  in¬ 
experienced  world  that  is  to  this  day  exerting  its  influence 
In  creating  a  better  era.  We  may  be  thankful  for  their 
having  lived  and  fought  and  died;  for  they  were  the  true 
forefathers  of  these  struggling  wage-slaves,  now  making 
themselves  felt  and  feared  in  these,  though  still  cruel  and 
hatctu!,  yet  brighter  and  more  hopeful  surroundings. 


SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION. 


HSliaN  (Claudius),  Varia  Historia.  Lugduni  in  Batavis,  1709. 
American  Cyclopaedia ,  D.  Appleton  &  Company,  N.  Y.  1867. 
Anonymous,  Seven  Essays  on  Ancient  Greece .  Oxford,  1832. 
Antoninus  (Pius),  Rescript;  Petit,  in  Thesaurus  Antiquitatum , 
Utrecht  &  Leyden,  1699. 

Apocryphal  Gospels  of  the  Infancy.  Protevangelion ,  Cowper, 
London,  1881  and  Others. 

Appian,  Rhomaike  Ilistoria ,  *Schweighauser,  3  vols.,  Leipz.  1785. 
Apuleius,  Metamorphosis ,  ( Golden  A.ss),  Ed.  *Oudendorp,  1786. 

German  Paraphrase,  Saclicr-Masoch,  Leipzic,  1877. 
Aquilius,  (M.),  Inscriptio  Capuensis,  OreUi,  No.  3,308. 
Arabic  Gospels  of  the  Infancy . 

Aristotle,  Ethics , 

Aristotle,  Logic , 

Aristotle,  Politics , 

Aristotle,  Metaphysics , 

Aristotle,  (Economics , 

Aristotle,  Physics , 

Aristotle, 

Arnobius,  Disputationes  Contra  Gente s.  (Adversus  Gentes ),  Hil¬ 
debrand,  (Ehler,  1845. 

Asconius,  De  Aseorm  Commentariis  Disputatio ,  Madvig,  Co¬ 
penhagen,  1825. 

Athenasus,  Deipnosophistoe ,  sire  Coence  Sapientium  Libriy  “Banquet 
of  the  Learned ,  ’’  Natalis,  de  Comitibus,  Veneto,  1556. 
Author  of  this  Work,  Travels  on  foot  through  the  Papal  States , 
New  York  Witness,  in  autumn  of  1870. 

Aveling  fEdw.  B.),  Die  Darwin* sche  Theorie ,  Stuttgart,  1887. 
Bancroft,  (Hubert  Howe),  Native  Races ,  San  Francisco,  1883. 
Bellermann,  Nachrichten  aus  dem  Alter thum,  Erfurt,  1789. 
Bible  and  Apocryphal  Books. 

Bockh,  Abhandluug  der  Historisch-Philologischen  Classe. 


>  Immanuel  Bekker,  Berlin,  1731. 


*  Books,  Inscriptions  etc.,  consulted  by  the  author  personally,  in  Eu¬ 
rope  and  elsewhere. 


XVI 


SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION. 


Bockh,  Corpus  Inscriptionum  Grcccarum,  Berlin,  1838-1850. 
Bockh,  Die  Laurischen  Silberbergwerke ,  Berlin,  1839. 

Bockh,  Staatshaushalt ung  der  Athener ,  1817. 

Boissy,  Inscription  de  Lyon ,  1880. 

Bombardini,  De  Carcere  et  Antiquo  ejus  Usu,  in  Supplement 
of  Thesaurus  Antiquitatum  ;  Gnevius  et  Gronovius 
Utrecht,  1694,  6  vols.,  Folio. 

Bureau  of  Labor,  (United  States);  First  annual  Report,  1880. 
Bucher  (Karl),  Aufstcinde  der  unfreien  Arbeiter,  Fr'kf’t.  1874. 
Caecilius  Calactenus,  in  Plutarch's  Lives  of  the  Ten  Orators 
quoted  also  by  other  Ancient  Authors. 

Cardinali  (Clemente),  Iscriz.  Velletri.  Diplomi  Imperiali  di  Pri- 
vilej  accordati  a'  Militari  raccolti  e  Commentati ,  Velletri 
1335.  Also  Memorie  d  ’  Antichita.  Acad.  Archaeol. 

Cato  (Censorius  vel  Censorinus),  De  Re  Rusticn ,  Paris,  1644. 
Cicero,  Ad  Atticum , 

Cicero,  De  Divinitate , 

Cicero,  Pro  Domo  Sua , 

Cicero,  Ad  Familiar es 
Cicero,  Laelius, 

Cicero,  De  Legibus , 

Cicero,  Philosophy , 

Cicero,  Pro  Plancio , 

Cicero,  Pro  Quinctio , 

Cicero,  Tusculanarum  Dispu- 


>  Orelli  (Caspar),  Zurich,  1827. 


tationum  Libri , 

Cicero,  Verres , 

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Codex  Theodosii,  Idem. 

Columella,  De  Re  Rustica ,  Ztftn  XII.,  Paris,  1543 

Cornelius  Nepos,  De  Excellent ibics  Ducibus ,  Dietch,  Leipzic  in 
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Creuzer,  Symbolik  und  Mithologie  der  alien  Volker ;  besonders 
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SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION. 


XVII 


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Dirksen,  Uebersicht  der  bisherigen  Versuche  zur  Kritik  und  Herstel- 
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Euripides,  Alcestis ,  ) 

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xvfii 


SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION. 


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Hewitt  (Abram  S.),  Speech  in  the  House  of  Representatives ,  on 
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Homer,  Iliad,  /  *Bekker  Berlin,  1843. 

Homer,  Odyssey ,  (  1 

Horace,  Carmina,  1 

Horace,  Epistolae,  >  *Orelli,  Zurich,  1859. 

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Hamilton  (William),  Researches  in  Asia  Minor ,  London,  n.  d. 

Heer  [Oswald],  Urwelt  der  Schweiz,  Zurich,  1877. 

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Justin  Dial,  Cum  Try  phone.  (  Certain  obscure  Passages.) 

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Laelius.  In  Orelli’s  Cicero,  Zurich,  1829. 

La  Rousse,  Dictionnaive  Universe l,  Paris,  Edition  of  1870. 

Lampridius  (2Elius),  in  Augusta  Historia  ; — Alexander  Severus , 
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Laveleye  (Emile  de),  Primitive  Property,  English  Trans¬ 
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Liiders,  (Otto),  Die  Dionysischen  Kunstler,  Berlin,  1873. 

McCullagh  (W.  Torrens),  Industrial  History  of  Free  Nations : 
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McCulloch  (John  Ramsey),  Life  of  Ricardo ,  London,  1876. 

Mackenzie  (Lord),  Roman  Law ,  Edinburgh,  1870. 

Macrobius  (Ambrosius  Aurelius  Theodosius)  Saturnaliornm  et 
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Maurice  (Barthelemy),  Histoire  Politique  et  Anecdotique  des 
Prisons  de  la  Seine,  Paris,  1840. 

Memoihes  Presenies  d  V  Academic :  Livre  II.,  977. 

Millar  (John),  Origin  of  Ranks,  Basil,  1798. 

Hillman  (Henry  Hart),  History  of  the  Jews,  Oxford,  1829. 

Millin  (Aubin  Louis),  Voyages ,  Paris,  1790. 

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Muller  (K.  O.),  Die  Dorier,  Gottengen,  1824. 

Muratorius  jLudovicus  Antonins,)  Antiquitates  Medii  JEvi, 
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Muratorius  (Ludovicus  Antoni  us),  Thesaurus  Veterum  Inscrip¬ 
tionum ,  Milan,  J739. 

New  Testament. 

*Nicolaus  (Damascenus),  Fragmenta  Historic;  also  quoted  by 
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Nymphodorus,  Nomima  Asias ,  per  Athenaeus  in  Deipnosoph- 
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Venice,  1556. 

Marini  (G.),  Atti  Dei  Fradclli  Arvali,  Roma,  1796. 

Oderico  (G.  L.),  Inscriptions  and  Numismatics,  Genoa  ,  1796, 


XX 


SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION. 


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*Orosius  (Paulus,),  Libri  VII.  Historiarum  Adversus  Paganos , 
Editio  princeps,  Vienna,  1471.  ? 

Ovid  (Publius  Naso),  Fastorum  Libri  qui  snpersunt.  Merkel 
and  Riese,  1857. 

Pandects  Justiniani ,  Samuel  Petit  in  Thesaurus  Grcevii  et 
Gronovii ,  Utrecht,  1699. 

Pausanias,  Rellados  Periegesis  (Descriptio  Groeeice),  Teubner 
Series ,  Leipzic,  Schubart,  1850. 

Peiresc  (Nicholas  Claude),  Dionis  Cassii  Excerpta  Vaticana 
Aix,  1635 

Petit  (Samuel),  * Studies  of  the  Arundelian  Inscription ,  Paris, 
1640;  also  Several  other  Criticisms. 

Philo  (Judaeus),  Quod  Omnis  Probus  Liber ,  ♦Turnebus  Paris, 
1552;  Legarde,  Onomastica  Sacra ,  Paris,  1870- , 

Plato,  Apology  of  Socrates , 


Bekker,  London  ed.,  1S28, 
Stallbaum,  Leipzic,  1825, 

Orell.,  Winkelmann,  Baiter  1840 
Burges,  Cary,  Davis,  trs. 


Plato,  Menexenos} 

Plato,  Minos, 

Plato,  PhoedOy 
Plato,  Phoedrus , 

Plato,  Protagoras , 

Plato,  De  Republican 
Plato,  Statesman , 

Plato,  Thecetetus , 

Plutarch,  Lives  of  Illustrious  Men ,  Teubner  Series,  Leipzic, 
1850  ;  English  Translation  of  Langhorne,  London,  n.  d. 
Polybius,  Historia  Katholike ,  Leipzic,  1843. 

Pomponius-Mela,  De  Orbis  Situ ,  Tzschucke,  Leipzic,  1807. 
Porter,  (G-eorge  Richardson),  Progress  of  the  Nation ,  Lon.  1836. 
Preller  (Ludwig),  Mithologie:  Demeter  und  Persephone ,  Leip¬ 
zic,  1854. 

Prudentius  (Aurelius)  Hymni ,  *Arvali,  Roma,  1790. 
PsEUDo-Plutarch,  De  Nobilitate ,  in  the  Teubner  Series ,  1845. 
Rangabe-Rhizo,  Antiquites  Helleniques,  2  vols.  Paris,  1855. 
Real  Fncyclopcedie,  Pauly. 

Reinesius  (Thomas),  Inscriptionum  Antiquarum  Syntagma, 
Leipzic,  1682,  Oracles:  Sibylline  BooJcs ,  1704. 

Renan  (Ernest),  Vie  de  J£sus,  Paris,  1863. 

Rinaldo,  Memorie  Istoriche  della  Citta  di  Capua ,  Napoli,  1755. 
Ritschl  (Friedrich  Wilhelm),  Plautus,  Bonn,  1848. 

Rodbertus  (von  Jagetzow),  Der  Normal  Arbeitstag ,  Berlin,  1871. 
Roscher  (Wilhelm),  Principes  d  ’  Economic  Politique ,  French 
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Rogers  (J.  E.  Thorold),  Six  Centuries  of  Work  and  Wages, 
New  York,  1884. 


SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION. 


xxi 


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Sanger  (William  W.),  History  of  Prostitution,  New  York,  1876. 

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Schliemann  (Henry),  The  Tiryns,  New  York,  1885. 

SchOmann  (F.  G.),  Assemblis  of  the  Athenians ,  English  Uni¬ 
versity  Translation  of  Cambridge,  1837. 

♦Servius,  On  the  JEneid  of  Virgil ,  Fabricins,  Meissen,  1551. 

Siefert  (Otto),  Sicilische  Sklavenkriege,  Altona,  1860. 

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Smith  (William),  Dictionary  of  Greek  and  Roman  Biography, 
London,  1849. 

Solon,  Code,  in  Plutarch,  Gaius  and  others. 

Stobseus,  Quoting  Lost  Works  of  Florilus ,  mentioned  by  Bticher. 

Strabo,  Geographica ,  Tzsehucke,  Leipzic,  1812. 

Suetonius  (Claudius),  Vitos  Duodecim  Ccesarum,  Burmann, 
Amsterdam,  1743. 

Syncellus,  Quoting  Africanus,  in  Chronica . 

Tarrentenus  (Paternus),  De  Re  Militari,  Quoted  by  Drumann, 

Terence  (Publius  Afer),  Heauton-timorumanos ,  London,  1857. 

Tertulian  (Quintus  [Septimius  Florens),  Apologeticus  and  De 
Idololatria ,  (Ehler,  Leip.  1857 ;  Dr.  March,  Douglass 
Seris,  New  York,  1876. 

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Munich,  1825. 

Theopompus,  In  *Plutarch,  De  Iside  et  Osiride , 

Thiersch  (Henry  W.)  Christian  Commonwealth,  Edinburgh,  1877. 

Thucydides,  Polemon  ton  Peloponnesion  (De  Bello  Pelloponnes- 
iaco ),  Leipzic,  Bibliotheca  Teubneriana ,  Bohme,  1857. 

Tompkins  (Henry),  Friendly  Societies  of  Antiquity ,  Lon.,  1867. 

Tompkins  (Henry,  Acting  Secretary  to  Registry,  of  Friendly 
Societies  of  Great  Britain),  Reports ,  London,  1867-9. 

Hlpian  (Domitius),  De  Officio  Proconsulis ;  Vatican  MS.  &  Fx- 
cerpta  Digstorum ;  De  Dominorum  Scevitia ,  Bonn,  1840. 

Uwaroff,  Essai  sur  Is  Mysters  d  ’  Eleusis , 

Valerius  Maximus,  Factorum  Dictorumque  MemorabiUum  Libri 
IX.  Leipzic,  1836. 


xxii 


SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION. 


Varro  (Marcus  Terentius),  De  Re  Rustica  Libri  Tt'es,  ♦Schnei¬ 
der,  Leipzic.  1796. 

Velleius  (Paterculus),  Historice  Romance ,  Orelli,  Leipzic,  1835. 
Virgil  (Publius  Maro),  FEneid,  Teubner  Series ,  Leipzic,  1840. 
W  all  ace,  (Robert),  Numbers  of  Mankind ,  Edinburgh,  1753. 
Weissenborn,  Comments  on  Livy ,  Leipzic,  1871. 

Wesseling  (Peter)  Veterum  Romanorum  ltineraria}  Utr’t,  1750. 
Wescher-Foucart,  Inscriptions  recueiUies  d  Delphes ,  Paris,  1863. 
Wescher  (C.),  In  Revue  Archeologique,  Paris,  1864. 
Westermann  (Anton),  Nymphodorus ,  In  Real- Encyclopaedia 
Wiener -Jahrbuch,  XX. 

Wilkinson  (Sir  Gardner),  Ancient  Egyptians ,  Boston,  1883. 
Wordsworth  (Christopher),  Fragments  of  Early  Latin ,  London. 
Wright  (Carroll  D.),  Industrial  Depressions ,  Report  of  the  Unit¬ 
ed  States  Bureau  of  Labor,  Washington,  1886. 

Xenophon,  Conner sationes,  ~ 


Xenophon,  Memorabilia , 
Xenophon,  CEconomicus , 
Xenophon,  De  Repvblica , 
Xenophon,  De  Vectigali , 


Leipzic,  1859. 


•The  Asterisks  refe.  ^orks  that  were  consulted,  by  the  author 
during  his  researches  abroad. 


SYMBOLS  OF  ANCIENT  PERFUMERS’  UNIOVa 


F.onj  an  Inscriptit 


•  jasper. - See  Chapter  xix 


COM  TEXTS  OF  THE  VOLUME. 


4 


CHAPTER  I. 

TAINT  OF  LABOR. 

TRAITS  AND  PECULIARITIES  OE  RACES. 

Grievances  of  the  Working  Classes — The  Competitive  System 
among  the  Ancients — Growing  Change  of  Taste  in  Head¬ 
ers  of  History — Inscriptions  and  suppressed  Fragments 
more  recently  becoming  Incentives  to  reflecting  Headers 
who  seek  Them  as  a  means  to  secure  Facts — No  true  De¬ 
mocracy— No  primeval  Middle  Class  known  to  the  Aryan 
Family — The  Taint  of  Labor  an  Inheritance  through  the 
Pagan  Religio-Political  Economy.  Page  37 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  INDO-EUROPEANS. 

THEIR  COMPETITIVE  SYSTEM. 

Religion  and  Politics  of  the  Indo-Europeans  Identical — Reason 
for  Religion  mixing  with  the  Movements  of  Labor — The 
Father  the  Original  Slaveholder — His  Children  the  Orig¬ 
inal  Slaves — Both  Law  and  Religion  empowered  him  to  kill 
them — Work  of  Conscience  in  the  Labor  Problem.  47 


*xir 


CONTENTS  OF  CHAPTERS. 


CHAPTER  in. 

LOST  MSS.  ARCHEOLOGY. 

TRUE  HISTORY  OF  LABOR  FOUND  ONLY  IN 

INSCRIPTIONS  AND  MUTILATED  ANNALa 

§ 

Prototypes  of  Industrial  Life  to  be  found  in  the  Aryan  and 
Semitic  Branches — Era  of  Slavery — Dawn  of  Manumission 
— Patriarchal  Form  too  advanced  a  Type  of  Government 
possible  to  primitive  Man— Religious  Superstition  fatal  to 
Independent  Labor — Labor,  Government  and  Religion  in¬ 
dissolubly  mixed — Concupiscence,  Acquisitiveness  and  Iras¬ 
cibility  a  Consequence  ol  the  archaic  Bully  or  Boss,  with  un¬ 
limited  Powers — Right  of  the  ancient  Father  to  enslave, 
sell,  torture  or  kill  his  Children — Abundant  Proofs  quoted — 
Origin  of  the  greater  and  more  humane  Impulses — Sym¬ 
pathy  beyond  mere  Self  preservation,  the  Result  of  Ed¬ 
ucation — Education  originated  from  Discussion — Discussion 
the  Result  of  Grievances  against  the  Outcast  Work-people — 
Too  rapid  Increase  of  their  hi  umbers  notwithstanding  the 
Sufferings — Means  Organized  by  Owners  for  decimating  them 
by  Murder — Ample  proof — The  great  Amphyotyonic  League 
— Glimpses  of  a  once  sullen  Combination  of  the  Desperate 
Slaves — Incipient  Organization  of  the  Nobles.  Page  67 

CHAPTER  IV. 

ELEUSINIAN  MYSTERIES 

ANCIENT  GRIEVANCES  OF  THE  WORKERS. 

Working  People  destitute  of  Souls— Original  popular  Beliefs — 
Plato  finally  gives  them  half  a  Soul — Modern  Ignorance  on 
the  true  Causes  of  certain  Developments  in  History — Sym¬ 
pathy,  the  Third  Great  Emotion  developed  out  of  growing 
Reason,  through  mutual  Commiseration  of  the  Outcasts — 
A  new  Cult — The  Unsolved  Problem  of  the  great  Eleusinian 
Mysteries — Their  wonderful  Story — Grievances  of  slighted 
Workingmen — Organization  impossible  to  Slaves  except  in 
their  Strikes  and  Rebellions — The  Aristocrats’  Politics  and 
Religion  barred  the  Doors  against  Work-people — Extraor- 


CONTENTS  OF  CHAPTERS 


dinary  Whims  and  Antics  at  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries — The 
Causes  of  Grievances  endured  by  the  Castaway  Laborers — 
Their  Motives  for  Secret  Organization — The  Terrible  Cryp- 
tia — The  horrible  Murders  of  Workingmen  for  Sport — Dark 
Deeds  Unveiled — Story  of  the  Massacre  of  2,000  Working* 
men — Evidence — The  Grievances  in  Sparta — In  Athens — - 
Free  Outcast  Builders,  Sculptors,  Teachers,  Priests,  Dancers, 
Musicians,  Artisans,  Diggers,  all  more  or  less  Organized — Re¬ 
turn  to  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries— Conclusion.  Page  83 

CHAPTER  V. 

STRIKES  AN  D  UPRISINGS. 

GRIEVANCES  CONTINUED.  PLANS  OF  ESCAPE. 

First  Known  and  First  Tried  Plan  of  Salvation  was  that  of  Retal¬ 
iation — The  Slaves  test  the  Ordeal  of  Armed  Force — Irasci¬ 
bility  of  the  Working  Classes  at  length  arrayed  against  their 
Masters — Typical  Strikes  of  the  ancient  Workingmen — Their 
Inhuman  Treatment — Famous  Strike  at  the  Silver  Diggings 
of  Laurium — 20,000  Artisans  and  Laborers  quit  Work  in  ft 
Body  and  go  over  to  the  Foes  of  their  own  Countrymen — 
The  Great  Peloponnesian  War  Decided  for  the  Spartans, 
•gainst  the  Athenians  by  this  Fatal  Strike.  Page  133 

CHAPTER  VL 

GRIEVANCES. 

LABOR  TROUBLES  AMONG  THE  ROMANS. 
MORE  BLOODY  PLANS  OF  SALVATION  TRIED. 

The  Irascible  Plan  in  Italy — Epidemic  Uprisings — Attempt  to 
Fire  the  City  of  Rome  and  have  Things  common — Conspir¬ 
acy  of  Slaves  at  the  Metropolis — Two  Traitors — Betrayal — 
Deaths  on  the  Roman  Gibbet — Another  Great  Uprising  at  Se- 
tia — Expected  Capture  of  the  World — Land  of  Wine  and 
Delight — Again  the  Traitor,  the  Betrayal  and  Gibbet — The 
Irascible  Plan  a  Failure — Strike  of  the  Agricultural  Laborers 
in  Etruria — Slave  Labor — Character  of  the  Etruscans — Expo- 


CONTENTS  OF  CHAPTERS. 


KXVi 


dition  of  Glabro — Fighting— Slaves  Worsted— Punishment 
on  the  dreadful  Cross,  the  ancient  Block  for  the  Low-born — 
Enormous  Strike  in  the  Land  of  Labor  Organizations — One 
Glimpse  at  the  Cause  and  Origin  of  Italian  Brigandage— La¬ 
borers,  Mechanics  and  Agriculturers  Driven  to  Despair — 
The  great  Uprising  in  Apulia — Fierce  Fighting  to  the  Dag¬ 
ger’s  Hilt — The  Overthrow,  the  Dungeon  and  the  Cross  — 
Proof  Dug  from  Fragments  of  Lost  History.  Page  145 


CHAPTER  VH 


DR1MAKOS. 

,  \ 

A  QUEER  OLD  MAN  OF  THE  MOUNTAINS. 

Strikk  of  Drimakos,  the  Chian  Slave — Co-operation  of  the 
Irascible  with  the  Sympathetic — A  Desperate  Greek  Bonds¬ 
man  at  Large — Labor  Grievances  of  the  ancient  Scio — Tem¬ 
perament -and  Character  of  Drimakos — Vast  Number  of  un¬ 
fortunate  Slaves — Revolt  and  Escape  to  the  Mountains — 
Old  Ruler  of  tbe  Mountain  Crags — Rigid  Master  and  loving 
Friend — Great  Successes — Price  offered  for  his  Head — How 
he  lost  it — The  Reaction — Rich  and  Poor  all  mourn  his  Loss 
as  a  Calamity — The  Brigands  infest  the  Island  afresh  since 
the  Demise  of  Drimakos — The  Heroon  at  his  Tomb — An  Al¬ 
tar  of  Pagan  Worship  at  which  this  Labor  Hero  becomes  the 
God,  reversing  the  Order  of  the  ancient  Rights — Ruins  of 
his  Temple  still  extant — Athenaeus — Nymphodorus — Archae¬ 
ology — Views  of  modern  Philologists.  Page  16H 

CHAPTER  VIII. 


VIRIATHUS. 

A  GREAT  REBELLION  IN  SPAIN. 


The  Roman  Slave  System  in  Spain— Tyranny  in  Lusitania — 
Massacre  of  the  People — Condition  before  the  Outbreak — 
First  Appearance  of  Viriathus — A  Shepherd  on  his  Native 


CONTEXTS  OF  CHATTERS . 


XXVI) 


Hills — A  Giant  in  Stature  and  Intellect — He  takes  Com¬ 
mand — Vetillius  Outwitted — Captured  and  vSlain — Confliot 
in  Tartessus — Romans  again  Beaten — Battle  of  the  Hill  of 
Venus — Viriatlius  Slaughters  another  army  and  Humiliates 
Rome — Segobria  Captured — Arrival  of  iEmilianus — He  is 
Out-generaled  and  at  last  Beaten  by  Viriathus — More  Bat¬ 
tles  and  Victories  for  the  Farmers — Arrival  of  Plautius 
with  Fresh  Roman  Soldiers — Viriathus  made  King — More 
Victories — Treason,  Conspiracy  and  Treachery  Lurking  in 
his  Oamps — Murdered  by  his  own  Perfidious  Officers — 
Pomp  at  His  Funeral — Relentless  Vengeance  of  the  Romans 
— Crucifixion  and  worse  Slavery  than  before — The  Cause 
Lott. 


CHAPTER  IX 

EUNUS. 

GRIEVANCES.  MORE  SALVATION  ON 
THE  VINDICTIVE  PLAN. 

The  Irascible  Impulse  in  its  Highest  Development  and  most 
enormous  Organization — Greatest  of  all  Strikes  found  onRec 
ord — Gigantic  Growth  of  Slavery — General  View  of  Sicilian 
Landlordism  and  Servitude  before  the  Outbreak — Great  In¬ 
crease  of  Bondsmen  and  Women — Enna,  Home  of  the  God¬ 
dess  Ceres,  becomes  the  Stronghold  of  the  Great  Uprising — 
Eunus;  his  Pedigree — He  is  made  King  of  the  Slaves — His¬ 
tory  o.  hislO  Years’  Reign — Somebody,  ashamed  to  confess  it, 
has  mangled  the  Histories- — The  Fragments  of  Diodorus  and 
other  Noble  Authors  Reveal  the  Facts — Cruelties  of  Damo- 
philus  and  Megallis,  the  immediate  Cause  of  the  Grievance — 
Eunus,  Slave,  Fire-spitter,  Leader,  Messiah,  King — Venge¬ 
ance — The  innocent  Daughter — Sympathy  hand-in-hand  with 
Irascibility  against  Avarice — Wise  Selection  by  Eunus,  of 
Achseus  as  Lieutenant — Council  of  War — Mass-meeting — A 
Plan  agreed  to — Cruelty  of  the  Slaves — Their  Army — The 
War  begun — Prisons  broken  open  and  60,000  Convicts  work¬ 
ing  in  the  Ergastula  set  free — Quotations — Sweeping  Extinc¬ 
tion  of  the  Rich — Large  Numbers  of  Free  Tramps  join — An¬ 
other  prodigious  Uprising  in  Southern  Sicily — Cleon — Con¬ 
jectures  regarding  this  Obscure  Military  Genius — Union  of 
Eunus,  Acbaeus  and  Cleon — Harmony — Victories  over  the 
Romans — Insurgent  Force  rises  to  200.000  Men — Proof-- 


XX  7111 


CONTENTS  OF  OB  AFTERS. 


Overthrow  and  Extinction  of  the  Armies  of  Hypsseus — Man¬ 
lius — Lentulus — The  Victorious  Workingmen  give  no  Quarter 
— Eunus  as  Mimic,  taunts  his  Enemies  by  Mock  Theatrical, 
Open-Air  Plays  in  the  Sieges — Cities  fall  into  his  Hands — 
His  Speeches — Moral  Aid  through  the  Social  Struggle  with 
Gracchus  at  Borne — Arrival  of  a  Roman  Army  under  Piso — 
Beginning  of  Reverses — Crucifixions — Demoralization — Fall 
of  Messana — Siege  of  Enna — Inscriptions  verifying  History 
— Romans  Repulsed — Arrival  of  Rupilius — Siege  of  Tauroma- 
nion — Wonderful  Death  of  Comanus — Cannibalism — The 
City  falls — Awful  Crucifixions — SecondSiege  of  Enna — Its 
20,000  People  are  crucified  on  the  Gibbet — Eunus  captured 
and  Devoured  by  Lice  in  a  Roman  Dungeon — Disastrous 
End  of  the  Rebellion  or  so-called  Servile  War.  Page  101 

CHAPTER  X. 

ARISTON ICUS. 

A  BLOODY  STRIKE  IN  ASIA  MINOR. 

Fbeedmen,  Bondsmen,  Teamps  and  Illegitimates  Rise  against  Op¬ 
pression — Contagion  of  monster  Strikes — Again  the  Irasci¬ 
ble  Plan  of  Rescue  tried — Aristonicus  of  Pergamus — Story 
of  the  Murder  of  Titus  Gracchus  and  of  300  Land  Reformers 
by  a  Mob  of  Nobles  at  Rome — Blossius,  a  Noble,  Espouses 
the  Cause  of  the  Workingmen — He  goes  to  Pergamus — The 
Heliopolitai — The  Commander  of  the  Labor  Army  overpow¬ 
ers  all  Resistance — Battle  of  Leuca — Overthrow  of  the  Rom¬ 
ans — Death  of  Crassus — Arrival  of  the  Consul Paperna — De¬ 
feat  of  the  Insurgents — Their  Punishment — Discouragement 
and  Suicide — Aristonicus  strangled,  Thousands  crucified  and 
the  Cause  Lost — Old  Authors  Quoted.  Page 

CHAPTER  XL 

ATHENION. 

ENORMOUS  STRIKE  AND  UPRISING  IN  SICILY. 

Ssoond  Sicilian  Labor-War — Tryphon  and  Athenion — Greed 
and  Irascibility  Again  Grapple — The  War  Plan  ol  Salvation 
Repeated  by  Slaves  and  Tramps — Athenion,  another  remark¬ 
able  General  Steps  Forth — Castle  of  the  Twins  in  a  Hideous 
Forest — Slaves  goaded  to  Revolt  by  Treachery  and  Intrigue 


of  a  Politician — Rebellion  and  the  Clangor  of  War — Battle 
In  the  Mountains — A  Victory  for  the  Slaves  at  the  Heights 
of  Engyon — Treachery  of  Gaddaeus  the  Freebooter — Decoy 
and  Crucifixions — Others  cast  Headlong  over  a  Precipice— 
The  Strike  starts  up  Afresh  at  Heraclea  Minoa — Murder  of 
Clonius  a  rich  Roman  Knight — Escape  of  Slaves  from  his 
Ehrgastulum — Sharp  Battles  under  the  Generalship  of  Salyius 
— Strife  rekindles  in  the  West — Battle  of  Alaba — The  Pro- 
praetor  punished  for  his  bad  Administration — Victory  Again 
Wreathes  a  Laurel  for  the  Lowly — A  vast  Uprising  in  West 
ern  Sicily — Athenion  the  Slave  Shepherd — Another  Fanatical 
Crank  of  Deeds — Rushing  the  Struggle  for  Existence — Fierce 
Battles  and  Blood-spilling — What  Ordinary  Readers  of  His¬ 
tory  have  not  heard  of — Fourth  Battle;  Triokala — Meek 
Sacrifices  by  the  Slaves,  to  the  Twins  of  Jupiter  and  Tha¬ 
lia — March  to  Triokala— Jealousy — Groat  Battle  and  Car¬ 
nage — Athenion  Wounded — He  escapes  to  Triokala  and  re¬ 
covers — Fifth  Battle — Lucullus  marches  to  the  Working¬ 
men’s  Fortifications — Battle  of  Triokala — The  Outcasts  Vic¬ 
torious — Lucullus  is  lost  from  View — Sixth  Battle — Servili- 
us,  another  Roman  General  Overthrown — The  Terrible 
Athenion  Master  of  Sicily  and  King  over  all  the  Working- 
People — Seventh  and  Final  Field  Conflict — Battle  of  Macel- 
la — Death  of  Athenion — Victor  this  Time  for  the  Romans - 
End  of  the  Rebellion — Satyros,  a  powerful  Greek  Slave  es¬ 
capes  to  the  Mountains  with  a  Force  of  Insurgents — They 
are  finally  lured  to  a  Capitulation  by  Aquillius  who  treacher¬ 
ously  turns  upon,  and  consigns  them  as  Gladiators  to  Rome 
— They  fight  the  Eighth  and  last  Battle  in  the  Roman  Am¬ 
phitheatre  among  wild  Beasts — A  ghastly  mutual  Suicide — 
The  Reaction — Treachery  of  Aquillius  Punished — The  Gold- 
Workers  pour  melted  Gold  down  his  Throat. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

SPARTACUS. 

THE  IRASCIBLE  PLAN  TESTED  ON  AN 
ENORMOUS  SCALE. 

Risk,  Vicissitudes  and  Fall  of  a  Great  General — The  Strike  of 
the  Gladiators — Grievances  that  led  to  the  Trouble — Growth 
of  Slavery  through  Usurpation  of  the  Lund  by  the  arrogant 
Optimates — What  is  known  of  Spartacu*  before  being  Sold 


XXX 


CONTENTS  OF  CHAPTERS . 


into  Slavery — Bolt  of  the  78  Gladiators  from  the  Ergastulum 
of  Lentulus  at  Capua — Escape  of  the  Ranavvays — How  they 
seized  Weapons — Vesuvius — First  Battle — Battle  of  the  Cliffs 
— Rout  of  Clodius — Second  Battle — Destruction  of  a  Pneio* 
rian  Army — Battle  of  the  Mineral  Baths — Great  Increase  of 
the  Rebel  Force — From  a  petty  Strike  it  assumes  the  Propor¬ 
tions  of  Revolution — Fourth  Battle;  Hilt  to  Hilt  with  Var- 
inius — Destruction  of  the  Main  Army  of  the  Romans — Win¬ 
ter  Quarters  of  Spartacus  at  Metapontem — Honor,  Discipline 
and  Temperance  of  the  Workingmen — Proofs  by  Pliny  and 
Plutarch — Coalision  with  the  Organized  Laborers  of  Italy — 
Uses  of  Gold  and  other  Ornaments  Forbidden — Wine  Ban¬ 
ished — Great  Numbers  Employed  in  the  Armories  of  Sparta¬ 
cus — Fifth  Battle — Battle  of  Mt.  Garganus — Ambuscade  of 
Arrius — Overthrow  and  Death  of  Orixus — Sixth  Battle — 
Spartacus  Destroys  the  Consular  Army  of  Poplicola — Sev¬ 
enth  Battle — Great  Conflict  of  the  River  Po — Overthrow  of 
Cassius  and  Defeat  of  the  10,000  Romans — Spartacus,  now 
Master,  assumes  the  Offensive — Eighth  Battle — Lentulus  De¬ 
feated  ;  Great  Army  nearly  annihilated — Mortification  and 
Terror  of  the  Romans — Ninth  Battle — Mutina — Proconsul 
Ca  ssius  again  Routed  in  a  Disastrous  Conflict  with  the  wary 
Gladiator — Spartacus  now  obliged  to  contend  with  the  De¬ 
mon  of  Insubordination — Crassus  elected  Consul — Reverses 
Begin — On  down  to  Rhegium — Sedition,  Treachery  Betray¬ 
als— Workingmen’s  own  Jealousies,  Insubordination  and  Lack 
of  Diplomacy  cause  their  final  Ruin — Tenth  Battle — Scaling 
of  the  Six -Mile  Ramparts  by  Spartacus — Battle  of  Croton — 
Destruction  of  the  Seceders,  Granicus  and  Castus — Obstinate 
Fighting — Spartacus  arrives  and  checks  the  Carnage — Pe- 
telia,  the  Eleventh  Battle — Victory — Twelfth  Battle;  Silarus 
— Last  and  most  Bloody  Encounter — Spartacus,  stabbing  his 
Horse,  Rushes  sword  drawn,  in  search  of  Crassus — Heaps 
of  the  slain — Dying  like  a  King — End  of  the  War — The  great 
Supplicium — Pompey  and  Crassus,  emulous  of  meagre  Hon¬ 
ors — Inhuman  Cruelties — Awful  Wreaking  of  Vengeance  on 
the  Cross — Dangling  Bodies  of  6,000  Crucified  Workingmen 
along  the  Appian  Way — Thousands  of  Others  crucified — Ut¬ 
ter  Failure  of  tL#  Irascible  Plan  of  Deliverance  Pag*  27o 

CHAPTER  XHJ- 

ORGANIZATION. 

ROME’S  ORGANIZED  WORKINGMEN  AND  WOMEN 

(>Roajraci.noN  OP  the  Fbeedmem — The  Jus  Coeundi — Roman  Du- 


XXX  l 


CO  V  TL  V  T, 8  07(1  17/  i  PTE  PR. 


ions — The  Collegium — Its  Power  and  Influence — What  the 
Poor  did  with  their  Dead — Cremation — Burial  a  Divine  Right 
which  they  were  too  Lowly  to  Practice — Worship  of  bor¬ 
rowed  Cods — Incineration  or  Burial  and  Trade  Unions  com¬ 
bined — Proofs — Clance  at  the  Inner  social  Life  of  the  ancient 
Brotherhoods — State  Ownership  and  Management — Nation¬ 
alized  Lands — Number  and  Variety  of  Trade  Unions — Strug¬ 
gles — Numa  Pompilius  First  to  Recognize  and  Uphold  Trade 
Unions — Law  of  the  12  Tables  taken  from  Solon — Harmony, 
Peace,  Ease,  steady  Work,  Prosperity  and  Plenty  Lasting 
with  little  Interruption  for  500  Years — Bondmen  fared  worse. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


Page  333 


LAWS  AGAINST  COMMUNES. 

THE  GREAT  ECONOMIC  ORGANIZATIONS. 

Ancient  Federations  of  Labor — How  they  were  Employed  by 
the  Government — Nomenclature  of  the  Brotherhoods — Cat¬ 
egories  of  King  Numa — Varieties  and  Ramifications -The 
Masons,  Stonecutters  and  Bricklayers — Federation  for  Mu¬ 
tual  Advantages — List  of  the  35  Trade  Unions,  under  the 
Jus  Coeundi .  Page  359 

CHAPTER  XV. 

TRADE  UNIONS. 

ORGANIZED  ARMOR-MAKERS  OF  ANTIQUITY. 

Trade  Unions  Turned  to  the  Manufacture  of  Arms  and  Muni¬ 
tions  of  War — How  it  came  about — The  Iron  and  Metal 
Workers — Artists  in  the  Alloys — How  Belligerent  Rome 
was  Furnished  with  Weapons,  Shoes  and  Other  Necessa¬ 
ries  for  Her  Warriors — The  Shieldmakers,  Arrowsmiths. 
Daggermakers,  War-Gun  and  Slingmakers,  Battering-Ram- 
makers  etc. — Bootmakers  who  Cobbled  for  the  Roman  Troops 
— Wine  Men,  Bakers  aud  Sutlers — All  Organized — Unions 
of  Oil  Grinders;  of  Pork  Butchers;  even  of  Cattle  Fodderers 
— The  Haymakers — Organized  Fishermen — Ancient  Labor 
brought  charmingly  ^ear  by  Inscriptions.  Page  372 


rxxii 


CONTENTS  OE  CHAPTERS. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

•e 

TRADE  UNIONS. 

THE  GREAT  TRADES  VICTUALING  SYSTEM. 

How  Rome  Was  Fed — Unions  of  Fishermen — Discovery  of  a 
Strange  Inscription  at  Pompeii,  Proving  the  Political  Power 
and  Organization  of  the  Workingmen  and  Women’s  Unions 
— Female  Suffrage  in  Italy — The  Fish  Salters — Wine  Smok¬ 
ers — Union  of  Spicemen — The  Game-Hunters’  Organizations 
— Unions  of  Amphitheatre-Sweepers — Unions  of  Wagoners, 
Ox-Drivers,  Muleteers,  Cooks, Weighers,  Tasters  and  Milkmen 
— The  Cooking  Utensil-Makers — Unions  of  Stewards — Old 
Familiar  Latin  Names,  with  Familiar  English  Meanings  Re¬ 
produced — Gaius  aud  the  Twelve  Tables — Numerous  Notes 
with  References  to  Archaeological  Collections  and  to  Histories 
Giving  Pages  and  many  Necessary  Renderings,  of  the  Ob- 
scure  Curiosities  Described.  Page  38° 

CHAPTER  XVIP 

INDUSTRIAL  COMMUNES 

AMUSEMENTS  OF  OLD.  UNIONS  OF  PLAYERS 

The  Collegia  Sc^nicorum — Unions  of  Mimics — Horrible  Mim¬ 
ic  Performances  in  Sicily — Bloody  Origin  of  Wakes — Unions 
of  Dancers,  Trumpeters,  Bagpipers,  and  Hornblowers — The 
Flute  Players — Roman  Games — Unions  of  Circus  Performers 

_ Oi  Gladiators — Of  Actors — Murdering  Robust  Wrestlers 

for  Holiday  Pastimes — Unions  of  Fortunetellers — Proofs  in 
the  Inscriptions — Ferocious  Gladiatorial  Scenes  between  the 
Workingmen  and  Tigers,  Lions,  Bears,  and  Other  Wild  Beasts 
made  compulsory  by  Roman  Law.  Pag*  401 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

TRADE  UNIONS. 

THE  ANCIENT  CXOTHING-CUTTERS. 

How  the  ancients  W  ERE  olothed — The  Unions  of  Fullers — Of 


CONTENTS  OF  CHAPTERS 


xxxiii 


Linen  Weavers,  Wool-carders.  Cloth-combers — Inscriptions 
as  Proof — Later  Laws  of  Theodosius  and  Justinian  Revised 
— Government  Cloth  Mills — What  was  Meant  by  Public 
Works — WHio  managed  Manufactures — The  Dyers — Old- 
fashioned  Shoes  of  the  Forefathers — How  made — Origin  of 
the  Crispins — The  Furriers’  Union — Roman  Ladies  and 
Fineries  of  Fur — The  great  Ragamuffin  Trade — Their  In¬ 
numerable  Unions — Ragpickers  of  Antiquity — Origin  of 
the  Cenciajuole — Organization  of  the  Real  Tatterdemalions 
Origin  of  the  Gypsies — Hypothesis.  415 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

TRADE  UNIONS. 

THE  PAGAN  AND  CHRISTIAN  IMAGE-MAKERS. 

Organizations  of  People  who  worked  for  the  Gods — Big  and 
little  Godsmiths — Their  Unions  object  to  the  New  Religion 
of  Christianity  because  this,  originally  Repudiating  Idol¬ 
atry,  Ruined  their  Business — Compromise  which  Originated 
the  Idolatry  in  the  Church  of  to-day — The  Cabatores — 
Unions  of  Ivory  Workers — Of  Bisellarii  or  Deity-Sedan- 
Makers — Of  Imagemakers  in  Plaster — The  Unguentarii  or 
Unions  of  Perfumemakers — Holy  Ointments  and  the  Unions 
that  manufactured  them — Etruscan  Trinketmakers — Book¬ 
binders — No  Proof  yet  found  of  their  Organization.Page428 


CHAPTER  XX. 

TRADE  UNIONS  CONCLUDED. 

THE  TAX-GATHERERS.  FINAL  REFLECTIONS. 

Unions  of  Collectors — A  Vast  Organized  System  with  a  Uni¬ 
form  and  Harmoniously  Working  Business — Trade  Unions 
under  Government  Aid  and  Security — The  Ager  Publicus 
of  Rome — True  Golden  Age  of  Organized  Labor — Govern¬ 
ment  Land — A  prodigious  Slave  System  their  Enemy — 
Victims  of  the  Slave  System — Premonitions  on  the  Coming 
of  Jesus — Demand  by  His  Teachings  for  Absolute  Equality. 

Page  437 


«xIt 


CONTENTS  OF  CHAPTERS. 


CHAPTER  XXL 


ROMANS  AND  GREEKS. 


THE  COUNTLESS  CO] 


[UNE& 


Unions  Of  Romans  and  Greeks  compared — Miscellaneous  Soci¬ 
eties  of  Tradesmen — Shipcarpenters — Boatmen — Vesselmak- 
ers — Millers — Organization  of  the  LwpanaHi — Of  the  Anci¬ 
ent  Firemen — Description  of  the  Greek  Fraternities — The 
Eranoi  and  Thiasoi — Strange  Mixture  of  Fiety  and  Business 
— Trade  Unions  of  Syria  and  North  Palestine — Their  Offi¬ 
cers — Membership  and  Influence  of  Women — Large  Num¬ 
bers  of  Communes  in  the  Islands  of  the  Eastern  Mediterra¬ 
nean — Their  Organizations  Known  and  Described  From  their 
Inscriptions .  Pag* 


CHAPTER  HE 

THE  ANCIENT  BANNER. 

INCALCULABLE  AGED  FLAG  OF  LABOR. 

Tn  Old,  Old  Crimson  Ensign — An  Emblem  of  Peace  and  Good 
Will  to  Man — Strange  Power  of  Human  Habit — Deseent  ef 
the  Red  Banner  through  Primitive  Culture — White  and  Azure 
the  Colors  of  Mythical  Angels,  Grandees  and  Aristocrats— 
Colors  for  the  Lowly  without  Family,  Souls  or  other  Serapbie 
Attributes — How  the  Red  Vexillum  was  Stolen  from  Labor 
— Tricks  which  Compromised  Peace  Tenets  of  the  Flag — Tho 
Flag  at  the  Dawn  ot  Labor’s  Power — Testimony  of  Polybius 
— Of  Livy — Of  Plutarch — Causes  of  Working  People’s  Affec¬ 
tion  for  Red — The  Emblem  of  Health  and  the  Fruits  of  Toil 
— Ceres  and  Minerva  their  Protectresses  and  Mother-God¬ 
desses  Wore  the  Flaming  Red — Emblem  of  Strength  and  Vi¬ 
tality — Archaeology  in  Proof — Their  Color  First  Borrowed 
from  Crimson  Sun-Beams — More  Light  and  less  Darkness — 
White  and  Pale  Hues  for  the  Priests — Origin  of  the  Word 
“  FLAG* — It  is  the  Word-Root  of  M  Flame ”  a  Red  Color- 
Proofs  Quoted — Mediaeval  Banner  in  France  and  England— 
The  Red  of  All  Modern  Flags  Borrowed  from  that  of  the  An¬ 
cient  Unions — Disgraceful  Ignorance  if  Mederm  Prejudice 
end  Censure. 


CONTENTS  OF  CHAPTERS. 


m? 


Evidenc«  showing  that  the  Early  Christians  were  Members 
— Testimony  of  Philo — Of  Eusebius — Facts  Belated  by  One 
of  the  Fathers — A  Full  Rendering — Numbers  and  Ways  oi 
the  Secret  Orders  in  and  about  Canaan  at  the  Time  of  Christ 
— The  Secret  Order  of  Eranists — Inscriptions  deciphered  by 
Bockh  and  other  Masters — Tertulian’s  Evidence — Community 
of  Goods — The  Eranistes  and  Thiasotes — Great  Numbers  of 
Secret  Societies  in  Asia  Minor  and  Syria.  Page  276 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

PALE  STI  N  E; 

HER  PRE-CHRISTIAN  COMMUNES. 

Cradle  of  a  Mighty  Reform — Acquisitiveness  and  Concupiscence 
in  open  Conflict  with  Irascibility  and  Sympathy — A  new  An¬ 
alysis  of  the  Origin  of  the  celebrated  Movement  in  Judaea — 
Communes  of  Palestine — Boundaries  between  the  Lowly  of 
Phoenicia,  Judaea,  Greece  and  Rome,  Unrecognized — Num¬ 
bers  of  the  Organized  About  the  Cradle  of  the  Saviour -Diffi¬ 
culty  of  comprehending  the  true  Import  of  the  Judaic  Idea 
in  that  Movement — Argument  and  Inscriptions  Showing  it 
to  have  been  the  Result  of  a  long  Line  of  Culture,  Organiz¬ 
ation  and  Experiment  Page 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

THE  FINAL  REVIEW. 

ANCIENT  PLANS  OP  “  BLESSED”  GOVERNMENT. 


Why  tee  Facts  were  Suppressed  and  the  Books  Mangled — Did 
our  Era  rise  out  of  the  Great  Labor  Struggles— An  Aston¬ 
ishing  Probability  Unmasked— Plants  and  Plans  of  the  Dis¬ 
tant  Past — Lycurgus — Reverential  Criticism —His  Funda¬ 
mental  Error — The  Citizens  were  the  Nobles — Public  Lands, 
Meals,  Schools  and  Games — The  Grotto  of  Taygetus — “Hell 
Paved  with  Infants’  Bones” — A  Model  Young  Gentleman— 


exxvi 


CONTENTS  OF  CHAPTERS. 


His  Introduction  to  the  Ladies — An  Earthquake  believed  to 
have  been  the  Spartans  ’  Punishment  for  Cruelty  to  the 
Working  People — The  Poor  and  Lowly  were  called  “Slave 
Souls **- — The  Great  Aristotle’s  Curse — Lucian’s  Choice  of  a 
Trade — Even  Plutarch  Lampoons  Them — Kings  Planting 
°oisons  with  which  to  Destroy  Them — Prophets  and  Mes- 
iahs — Eunus  the  Prophet  of  Antioch — His  Plan  of  Salvation 
— No  Quarters — Wholesale  Extinction  of  theWealthy — What 
Succeeding  Ages  Learned  from  the  Outcome  of  this  Ordeal 
of  Carnage— Plans  of  the  Anarchists  Taught  Needful  Lessons 
on  Future  Political  Economy — Drimakos — His  Home  of  Run¬ 
away  Angels  in  the  Skies — How  his  Plan  Worked — Desper¬ 
ate  Plan  of  Aristonicus  in  Asia  Minor  which  offers  the  Toilers 
the  Beatitude  of  being  “  Citizens  of  the  Sun  * — Sad  Outcome 
— Innocent  Plan  of  Spartacus — His  Ideal  ‘  ‘  Salvation”  was 
his  Emancipation  Proclamation  and  Armed  Power  to  Enforce 
It — He  Wanted  to  Go  Home  to  the  Green  Hills  of  His  Boy¬ 
hood — All  these  Plan-Makers  were  Messiahs  and  Prophets — 
“The  Kings  Kill  the  Prophets” — The  Great  Messiah  at  Last 
— Long-Smothered  Authors  Dragged  forth — Their  own  Ut¬ 
terances  Quoted  in  the  Living  Tongue — Numerous  Excerpts 
from  their  Books— Men  Growing  Wise  in  Their  Understand¬ 
ing — The  Yastness  of  the  Revolution  from  the  Pagan  Cult 
which  Denied  the  Majority  Both  Soul  and  Liberty,  threw  the 
Race  into  Bewilderment  of  Two  Thousand  Years  of  Trial 
and  Doubt — Plans  of  the  Founders  of  Government  Reviewed 
■ — Resemblance  of  Socrates  and  Jesus — Paralellisms  Drawn 
— One  Agitates  by  Simile  the  other,  Allegory — Proof  that 
they  were  Both  Great  Orators — Their  Eloquence — Teaching 
Precepts  that  are  just  Becoming  Applicable — The  Intellect¬ 
ual  Stagnation  in  after  Ages  a  Natural  Consequence  upon  a 
Revolution  that  Overturned  the  Great  Pagan  Cult — The  Mo¬ 
hammedan  Rescue — London’s  Socialism  from  Same  Old  Plant 
— What  two  Men  Did  in  Twenty-five  Centuries — Pagan  Self¬ 
ishness  Exhibited  in  Prayers — Very  Ancient  Prayers  off  Our 
Germano- Ary  an  Mothers  and  Fathers — Specimens  Quoted — 
Prayer  of  Alcestis — Of  Other  honest  Pagans — All  Based  upon 
Self  and  Family — Prayer  of  Socrates  to  Pan  for  More  Wisdom 
and  Humility — Prayer  of  Juvenal  for  the  Poor  Slave’s  De- 
live?’ance — Finally,  after  many  Centuries,  the  Dying  Prayer 
Begged  the  Pan  of  Socrates  or  Universal  Father  for  Universal 
Cancellation,  to  fit  the  World  for  a  New  Era — The  Relation 
of  tho  Jews  to  the  Labor  Movement — The  Romans,  Mad  at 
the  Spread  of  the  Christian  Doctrines  of  Universal  Equality 
Take  Vengeance  in  the  Slaughter  of  the  Jews — Progress  o£ 
Ancient  Invention — The  Labor-saving  Reaper  -Conclusion 


THE  ANCIENT  LOWLY. 


CHAPTER  L 

TAINT  OF  LABOR 

TRAITS  AND  PECULIARITIES  OE  RACES. 

Gbievance  of  the  Working  Classes— The  Competitive  System 
among  the  Ancients — Growing  Change  of  Taste  in  Readers 
of  History — Inscriptions  and  Suppressed  Fragments  more  re¬ 
cently  becoming  Incentives  to  Reflecting  Readers  who  Seek 
them  as  a  Means  to  secure  Facts — No  true  Democracy  -  No 
primeval  Middle  Class  known  to  the  Aryan  Family — The 
Taint  of  Labor  an  Inheritance  through  the  Pagan  Religio- 
Political  Economy. 

Students  of  history  appear  to  be  of  three  distinct 
classes:  first,  those  who  examine  it  to  enjoy  the  stir¬ 
ring  scenes  of  war  and  the  exhibit  that  it  makes  of  pop¬ 
ular  pageant,  pomp  and  military  genius ;  secondly,  those 
who  examine  it  with  an  object  of  gleaning  facts  regard¬ 
ing  spiritual,  ecclesiastical  and  other  matters  of  reli¬ 
gion;  and  lastly  those  who  search  for  recounted  deeds  as 
well  as  clues  to  tenets  of  social  movements  among  man¬ 
kind.  In  this  last,  there  has  been  an  increasing  interest 
since  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Among  the  precious  obscurities  sought  by  our  genera¬ 
tion  are  historical  fragments,  obscure  hints  and  allusions 
and  queer  palatographs  on  tablets  of  bronze,  stone,  earth¬ 
enware  and  other  objects,  containing  inscriptions,  symbols 
and  emblems,  even  rules  showing  the  existence  of  labor  so¬ 
cieties  all  through  the  past  civilization.  Especially  is  re¬ 
search  quickened  in  the  hearts  of  a  certain  class  of  anti¬ 
quaries  who  are  interested  in  the  search  of  history,  for  its 
social  phases. 


88 


RAGE  PECULIARITIES. 


It  is  evident  from  all  clues  obtainable  that  in  the  open 
world  there  has  never  existed  a  social  government.  Ef¬ 
forts  have  been  made  to  prove  that  mankind  at  various 
intervals  and  at  various  points,  once  enjoyed  conditions 
of  life  based  so  radically  upon  democratic  laws  as  to  re¬ 
semble  those  now  advocated;  but  such  examples  do  not 
bear  the  test  of  rigid  investigation.  Although  there  have 
existed  republics  and  paternal  governments  they  have 
been  so  tinged  with  patrician  leadership  on  the  one  hand 
and  patriarchal  dictatorship  on  the  other,  as  to  render  it 
impossible  to  compare  them  with  the  socialism  now  advo¬ 
cated,  where  the  lowly  ascend  and  the  lordly  descend,  to 
unite  on  a  common  level.  The  deep  aim  of  these  great 
struggles  of  our  age  known  as  the  labor  movement  is  to 
acquire  and  to  enjoy  complete  and  lasting  co-operation. 
This  co-operation,  or  brotherhood  of  life  economies  is  ex¬ 
pected  to  be  not  only  political  but  economical,  changing 
both  the  government  and  the  methods  of  creating  ana 
dispensing  the  means  of  life,  from  the  competitive  into 
the  purely  democratic  or  co-operative.  A  practical  adop¬ 
tion  of  this  mutualism  by  any  tribe  or  branch  of  the  hu¬ 
man  family  has  probably  never  yet  occurred  and  never 
has  such  a  state  of  things  existed  except  among  those  se¬ 
cretly  organized,  of  whom  we  propose  to  treat 

All  the  evidences  combine  to  prove  that  the  only  meth¬ 
od  societies  have  ever  yet  used,  either  in  political  or  in 
economic  life,  is  the  competitive  one;  and  as  the  change 
from  the  purely  competitive  into  the  purely  co-operative 
involves  little  less  than  revolution,  or  to  say  the  least,  in¬ 
troversion,  it  becomes  a  study  of  gravest  importance. 
In  the  remote  past  so  meagre  was  the  co-operative  and 
so  potent  the  competitive  that  there  existed  no  interme¬ 
diary  classes  and  conflicts  were  common  in  consequence. 
Roscher  thinks  that  middlemen  are  an  indispensable  el¬ 
ement  to  peace;  and  it  seems  evident  that  his  opinions 
are  not  without  grounds,  when  applied  to  every  stage  of 
the  competitive  system  in  all  known  ages  of  the  world.  * 

i  Principes  cT  ficomomit  politique,  Paris,  1867,  pp.  1T6-6.  ”Tant  qa1!!  exists 
ent  re  las  riches  et  lea  paavres  one  clsse  interm6dlalre  considerable,  l’lnflusoof 

morale  qu’elle  exerce  suflit  pour  empecher  une  collis  ou”. 


TA  WNING  ABYSS  BETWEEN  RICE  AND  POOR .  39 


Glimpses  of  evidence  reward  tlie  researchers  into  the 
early  history  of  the  laboring  masses  by  establishing  the 
fact  that  there  primarily  existed  no  middle  class.  But 
we  find  great  numbers  of  freedmen  or  plebeians  as  early 
as  700  years  before  Christ.  Men  were  originally  divided 
into  lords  and  servants.  There  were  masters  and  there 
were  slaves.  The  chasm  between  these  two  was  an  emp¬ 
ty  pit  so  wide  that  no  leap  from  one  class  to  the  other 
was  considered  either  practicable  or  imaginable.  As  late 
as  the  sophists  there  appears  a  pronounced  aversion  to 
wage  taking,  especially  in  all  business  having  for  its  ob¬ 
ject  educational  results.  Plato  abhorred  a  sophist  who 
would  work  for  wages.  Public  servants  in  the  instruc¬ 
tion  of  philosophy  and  other  branches  of  what  was  then 
an  ordinary  education,  ,were  despised  when  they  allowed 
themselves  to  belittle  their  manhood  and  their  calling  by 
this  ignoble  pay.  Plato  received  gifts  from  the  rich  but 
refused  pay.  He  was  a  patrician  or  peer.  A  statesman 
of  to-day  who  receives  gifts  and  is  not  content  with  his 
salary  is  regarded  with  distrust  and  aversion,  almost  as 
great  as  that  against  wages  in  ancient  times.  One  can  ac¬ 
count  for  this  metamorphosis  of  ethics  only  in  the  com¬ 
parative  absence  in  those  days  of  labor  among  patricians 
or  managers.  Although  free  mercenary  soldiers  were 
common  who  took  wages  for  their  recompense,  and  free 
hucksters  and  other  petty  dealers  were  known  to  exist, 
yet  most  labor  of  cultivation,  of  building,  of  housekeep¬ 
ing  and  a  considerable  amount  of  the  labor  of  mechanics 
was  performed  by  slaves. 

The  law  of  Moses  had  partly  abolished  slavery  among 
the  Hebrews  as  early  as  B.  0.  1400,  probably  on  account 
of  the  contempt  for  that  degradation  which  the  Hebrews 
felt,  after  the  deliverance  from  their  protracted  slavery 
in  Egypt.  It  appears  that  the  Hebrews  were  the  chief 
originators  and  conservators  of  what  is  now  known  and 
advocated  in  the  name  of  socialism ;  and  their  weird  life, 
peculiar  language,  laws,  struggles  and  inextinguishable 
nationality  scintillate  through  many  of  the  obcurities  of 
history  in  a  manner  to  command  the  wonder  if  not  the 
awe  of  all  lovers  of  democratic  society.  Especially  does 
this  remark  apply  when  we  consider  the  intensely  and 


40 


ANCIENT  GRIEVANCES  OF  LABOR. 


bitterly  opposite  character  of  every  other  community  or 
nationality  with  which  the  Hebrew  race  has  ever  come  in 
contact. 

The  Hebrew  people  were  the  Congregation  and  the 
place  where  they  assembled  was  called  the  Tabernacle. 
The  Pentateuch  that  records  the  great  Jewish  law,  quite 
sufficiently  explains  that  absolute  liberty,  or  relative  soci¬ 
alization  was  the  law  of  Moses.2  Under  no  other  code  of 
laws  have  equal  rights  of  man  with  man  been  possible 
among  other  contemporaneous  nations  or  tribes;  because 
the  ethics  of  the  family,  the  city  or  state,  were  grounded 
upon  the  competitive  rather  than  the  co-operative  or  mu¬ 
tual  principle.3  Nearly  all  the  ancients  were  fighters. 
The  Hebrew  branch  of  the  great  Semitic  family  stems  to 
have  been  a  partial  exception.  It  is  true  that  they  had 
wars  and  competed  with  outsiders;  but  their  peace-lov¬ 
ing  traits  within  their  own  ranks,  prevailed  over  warlike 
ones,  probably  somewhat  as  a  result  of  their  long  captiv¬ 
ity  in  Egypt,  but  principally  from  the  peaceful  and  hu¬ 
mane  code  of  laws  which  they  received  from  Moses.  But 
it  appears  very  certain  that  J  ewish  monotheism,  together 
with  the  social  or  mutually  protective  habits  of  this  peo¬ 
ple  and  their  comparatively  mild  laws  made  them  the  ob¬ 
ject  of  hatred  among  the  more  competitive  and  conse¬ 
quently  fiercer  nations  with  whom  they  came  in  contact. 

It  is  not  then,  from  this  Semitic  branch  of  the  human 
family  that  our  struggling,  warlike  and  competitive  char¬ 
acteristics  are  derived.  A  close  observation  of  the  He¬ 
brews  discloses  that  although  they  were  often  engaged 
in  strifes  it  was  generally  because  attacked.  The  aggress¬ 
iveness  which  characterizes  mankind  springs  not  from 
the  Semitic  so  much  as  from  the  Aryan  germ.4  Two  dis¬ 
tinct  ideas  have  been  contended  for  from  the  dimmest  re¬ 
moteness  either  of  the  provable  or  the  conjectural  history. 
One  is  the  co-operative,  which  means  the  mutually  pro¬ 
tective  or  socialistic,  the  other  the  competitive  or  warlike 
and  aggressive. 

*  Leviticus,  xlx.  Mann’s  History  of  Ancient  and  Mediaeval  Republics,  pp. 

a  Fustel  de  Coulanges.  Cit6  Antique,  Chap.  i.  Crovances  sur  l’arne  et  sm 
la  mort. 

4 The  Phoenicians  are  excepted  frcm  this  remark. 


A  GREAT  POWER  UNRECOGNIZED. 


41 


Through  thousands  of  ages  men  have  vigorously  con¬ 
tended  for  these  antipodal  results,  especially  in  Europe. 
They  have  contended  for  them  through  religious  beliefs, 
through  social  inculcation  and  philosophy,  through  rig¬ 
id  scholastic  training,  and  through  the  most  implacable 
hatreds,  bloody  persecutions  and  race-wars  ever  recorded 
in  the  annals  of  mankind.  Until  we  become  better  ac¬ 
quainted  with  the  history  of  the  poor  classes  and  divest 
ourselves  of  clouds  that  have  hitherto  obscured  the  vision 
of  all  historians;  until  we  study  the  past  especially  the  som¬ 
ber  life  and  strange  career  of  the  Semitic  family,  from  a 
standpoint  of  development  or  evolution,  and  analyze  their 
strangely  tenacious  and  persistent  views  unbiased  by 
the  views  through  which  we  are  still  taught  to  regard 
others;  until  we  can  catch  the  practical  advantages  of  co¬ 
operation,  mutually  one  with  another  and  thoroughly  see 
the  savage  nature  of  competitive  life,  must  we  remain 
blind  to  the  true  object  which  inspired  the  greatest  ad¬ 
vent  of  this  world; — the  visit  and  labors  at  Palestine  and 
the  movement  whose  undying  germs  there  planted  the 
world  still  loves  and  cultivates. 

These  words  are  expressed  preliminarily  to  announcing 
facts  which  have  perhaps  never  before  been  observed 
and  certainly  never  enough  considered : — that  the  Ary¬ 
an  or  Indo-European  branch  of  the  human  race  has  al¬ 
ways,  in  private  and  in  public  life,  in  religion,  in  soci¬ 
ety  conventionalism,  in  methods  of  reasoning  and  in  its 
political  economy,  been  competitive ,  whilst  the  Semitic 
branch  has  ever  been  co-operative.  For  thousands  of 
years  these  two  great  families  have  lived  over  against 
each  other,  sometimes  mixed,  sometimes  by  themselves, 
have  struggled  and  fought,  have  built  up  and  tori)  down, 
each  with  its  own  inexorably  fixed  notions;  and  never 
as  we  shall  prove,  did  they  show  anything  like  a  fusion 
or  even  a  conciliation  of  the  two  systems  until  three 
hundred  years  after  the  death  of  Christ.  They  are  war¬ 
ring  still ;  and  the  direct  causes  of  this  warfare  as  well 
as  its  direct  results  are  the  great  labor  movements  of  to¬ 
day.  We  hope  in  these  pages  to  show  that  the  natural 
bent  of  the  lowly  majority  of  mankind  is  toward  co-op- 


42 


HA  CE  PECULIARITIES. 


eration;  that  race  hatreds  ran  so  high  that  it  became 
necessary  to  have  an  Intercessor  or  mediator  to  act  be¬ 
tween  the  two  races  and  their  two  ideas,  in  order  to 
bring  about  a  mutually  co-operative  system  under  which 
the  large  majorities,  including  working  people  could  bet¬ 
ter  subsist.  It  became  necessary  to  have  this  Interces¬ 
sor  not  merely  to  arrange  a  religion  based  upon  salvation 
of  the  soul  or  immortal  principle,  but  more  likely,  as  our 
train  of  evidence  goes  to  prove,  to  introduce  an  organiz- 
ahle  method  for  the  economic  salvation  of  the  downtrod¬ 
den  and  realize  practically  the  promised  “Heaven  on 
earth.” 

We  mean  by  this  that  from  the  days  of  Moses,  dating 
something  above  fourteen  hundred  years  before  Christ, 
there  have  existed  two  distinctly  opposite  sets  of  ideas  or 
of  thought  upon  which  mankind — the  arrogant  blooded 
family  with  its  competition  on  the  one  hand  and  the  slave 
with  his  rebellions,  and  freedman  with  his  formidable  un¬ 
ions  on  the  other — have  been  struggling  to  build  up  civil¬ 
izations.  The  transition  from  a  completely  competitive 
to  a  mutually  co-operative  system  involved  complete  rev¬ 
olution.  The  channels  in  which  human  thought  has  run 
since  man  has  been  a  mere  animal,  occupying  as  the  the¬ 
ory  of  evolution  daringly  asserts,  a  hundred  thousand  or 
more  of  years,  have,  except  in  the  case  of  the  persecuted 
and  sometimes  almost  exterminated  unions,  been  purely 
competitive. 

The  competitive  is  the  oldest  system  known.  It  is  pro¬ 
foundly  aged.  It  is  the  system  employed  by  all  living  be¬ 
ings  by  which  to  procure  for  individuals,  each  for  itself  and 
its  species,  the  means  wherewith  to  subsist.  It  is,  with¬ 
out  the  least  shadow  of  doubt,  the  original.  It  consists 
in  methods  of  the  individual,  whether  a  weed,  a  tree,  fox, 
reptile,  hawk  or  human  being,  of  subsisting,  as  an  isola¬ 
ted  creature  or  ego,  independently  of  others.  It  has  recog¬ 
nized  self  as  uppermost  and  taken  upon  its  own  respon¬ 
sibility  for  others’  sake  their  care  only  for  gratification  of 
self,  as  that  manifested  in  preservation  of  species. 

Back  in  the  remote  past,  as  reason  began  to  dawn  upon 
creeping  cave-dwellers  or  troglodytes  of  our  race,  when 


TWO  ANTAGONISTIC AL  SYSTEMS. 


43 


thought  was  inspired  by  suspicion  and  methods  of  subsist¬ 
ence  were  based  upon  cunning,  nature,  in  the  vagueness 
of  his  understanding  was  full  of  terrors.  As  he  began  to 
realize  the  certainty  of  death,  man  established  the  first  re¬ 
ligion  ;  but  it  was  purely  upon  the  competitive  basis,  al¬ 
ways  with  this  aristocratical  ego  uppermost. 

Not  until  uncounted  ages  had  passed,  nor  until  this  pa¬ 
gan  religion  was  inconceivably  old  did  another  appear, 
arising  from  the  mutually  protective  or  co-operative  idea. 
This  was  at  so  late  a  period  that  by  groping  back  into  the 
misty  past,  we  are  enabled  to  know  its  founder  and  trace 
its  history.  That  it  was  an  innovation,  intolerably  anti¬ 
thetical  to  this  more  aged,  original  competition  or  brute- 
force  underlying  and  inspiring  both  business  and  religion  is 
proved  by  the  hatreds  borne  against  it,  which  have  so 
stamped  themselves,  not  so  much  upon  the  religion  as  up¬ 
on  the  whole  race  that  kindled  its  flame,  spoke  its  tongue 
and  cherished  its  ideas. 

The  great  struggle  going  on  to-day  seems  best  under¬ 
stood  by  the  laborer.6  Persons  brought  up  under  the 
purely  competitive  system  which  governs  human  affairs, 
see  with  difficulty  the  idea  of  true  socialism ;  but  the  Jews 
even  of  our  day,  grasp  it  with  ease.  We  are  at  a  loss  to 
comprehend  this.  Why  should  the  two  founders  of  the 
labor  party  in  Germany  have  arrived  while  young,  at  the 
same  conception  of  a  method  which  involves  a  revolution 
from  the  prevailing  ideas  of  political  economy  ?  Marx  and 
Lasselle  had  been  born  and  educated  under  the  Mosaic 
law.  Ricardo,  a  Jewish  speculator  in  stocks,  was  brought 
up  in  strict  obedience  to  the  Jewish  law  by  his  father ;  but 
finding  the  Hebrew  doctrine  very  adverse  to  his  specula¬ 
tive  tendencies,  notions  of  wages  and  political  economy,  he 
withdrew  or  seceded  from  his  ancestral  religion  and  join¬ 
ed  the  more  numerous  ranks  of  the  competitive  one.6 

The  Mosaic  Law,  divested  of  its  idiosyncracies  such  as 

>  8m  Prof.  Ely’s  French  and  German  Socialisms ;  Chan.  xIL  pp.  189-203 ; 
Lassalle’s  Allgemeiner  Deutscher  Arbeiter  Verein.  Ferdinand  Lassalle  and  Karl 
Marx  were  Jews;  and  it  is  conjectured  that  their  ease  in  comprehending  the 
true  theories  of  the  working  people  eminated  from  their  early  training. 

•  McCulloch,  Introduction  to  The  Life  of  lticardo ;  London,  187g. 


RACE  PECULIARITIES, 


*4 

thirty-two  hundred  years  ago,  when  men  were  simpler, 
were  suitable  enough,  condensed  into  fair  English,  reads 
about  as  follows: 

It  is  compulsory  upon  every  man  to  stand  in  awe  and 
obedience  before  father  and  mother  and  to  keep  the  sab¬ 
bath.  Do  not  turn  in  favor  of  idols  nor  make  molten 
gods  for  your  worship.  All  sacrifice  of  a  peace  offering 
must  be  offered  of  your  own  free  will,  and  eaten  the  same 
day  and  the  next;  for  if  any  of  it  remain  until  the  third, 
it  must  be  burned  as  unhallowed  and  abominable. 

When  you  reap  the  harvests  of  your  land,  leave  some 
in  the  corners  of  the  field  and  do  not  gather  the  glean¬ 
ings  of  the  harvest  nor  glean  the  vineyards.  Leave  some¬ 
thing  for  the  poor  and  the  stranger.'*  All  stealing,  false 
dealing  and  lying,  one  to  another  are  forbidden.  You 
must  not  swear  by  my  name  falsely  nor  profane  it.  You 
are  forbidden  to  defraud  or  rob  your  neighbor.  Pay  with¬ 
out  delay  the  wages  agreed  upon,  to  those  whom  you  en¬ 
gage  to  labor  for  you.  Never  ill-treat  the  deaf  nor  put  a 
stumbling  block  before  the  blind.  Be  careful  and  dis¬ 
creet  in  your  judgment  and  your  word  of  honor,  treating 
neighbors  with  righteous  equality.  N ever  go  about  tale¬ 
bearing  among  the  people,  nor  stir  feuds  with  neighbors. 
To  hate  your  brother  is  forbidden  and  to  prevent  him 
from  falling  into  error  you  should  call  his  attention  to 
his  fault.  Abstain  from  revenges  and  grudges  against 
the  people  and  love  your  neighbor  as  yourself.  Cultivate 
your  stock  after  the  natural  law  of  selection.  Let  the 
seed  of  your  fields  be  pure.  Let  your  garments  be  un¬ 
mixed;  if  linen,  let  them  be  of  pure  linen;  if  wool,  let 
them  be  all  wool. 

Then  follow  many  details  minutely  describing  what 
constitutes  crime  and  what  the  punishment.  Many  of 
the  punishments,  while  probably  in  very  good  keeping 
with  an  early  and  semi-barbarous  age,  appear  to  us  bru  - 
tal  .md  distasteful  in  the  extreme.  The  severe  punishment 
of  death 8  visited  upon  all  who  defiled  the  peculiar  people 
by  mixing  their  blood  with  Moloch,9  has  gone  far  toward 
preserving  the  Hebrew  stock  from  admixture  with  other 
races  of  mankind.  The  purity  with  which  the  Jews  have 


1  Leviticus,  xxiii.  22. 


•  Leviticus,  xx.  2.  7. 


» Leviticus,  xxL  14. 


RELIGION  AND  TOIL  UNAVOIDABLY  MIXED.  46 


thud  maintained  themselves  amid  vicissitudes,  such  as 
would  have  swallowed  up  and  annihilated  any  other  fam¬ 
ily  of  the  human  race,  is  readily  pronounced  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  phenomena  encountered  in  the  study  of 
ethnology.  The  command  is  severe  against  witch,  wiz- 
zard  and  spirit- worship.10  This  must  be  partly  accounted 
for  by  the  fact  that  the  Egyptians,  under  whose  domina¬ 
tion  the  Jews  had  chafed  for  400  years  as  slaves,  were 
among  the  most  superstitious  in  their  belief  in,  and  wor¬ 
ship  of  all  sorts  of  prestigiation.  Charms,  incantations, 
witchcraft  and  all  the  sleights  of  the  wand  were  so  pop¬ 
ular  that  the  art  was  for  ages  interwoven  with  their  reli¬ 
gion.  However  much  we  may  desire  to  ignore  all  men¬ 
tion  of  religion  in  this  history  of  the  ancient  lowly,  we 
find  this  impossible  because  of  the  prevalence  of  priest- 
power  and  dictum  in  political  economy.  The  Hebrews 
were  the  only  ancients  who  worshiped  one  deity;11  and 
as  that  deity  is  represented  to  be  the  very  one  who 
dictated  the  law  of  Moses,  he  would  naturally  be  severe 
against  false  gods.  “I  am  a  jealous  God,”  is  an  expression 
often  repeated  in  the  bible;12  and  such  a  one  in  giving  a 
code  of  laws  for  the  government  of  men  would  scarcely  do 
otherwise  than  make  idolatry  a  crime.  Immodesty  also 
receives  a  full  share  of  condemnation  from  the  great  He¬ 
brew  law,  which  thoroughly  defines  13  what  constitutes 
unrefined  or  immodest  actions. 

It  is  thus  seen  that  a  lofty  spirit  of  chastity  and  of  mor¬ 
al  purity  is  inculcated  into  all  the  Mosaic  law.  There  is 
nothing  in  it  that  binds  the  Jews  to  the  practice  of  any¬ 
thing  Kke  close  community  of  goods.  The  law  of  Moses 
is  not  communistical.  Competitive  methods  then  as  now, 
were  the  reigning  ones.  But  the  law  was  mutually  pro¬ 
tective.  The  condition  of  society  to-day  is  toned  in  a 
great  measure  by  the  practice  of  the  demands  of  this  aged 
code.  Nearly  all  of  the  above  cited  paragraphs  are  now 
being  obeyed  by  us;  and  they  act  alike,  among  Jew  and 

io  Leviticus,  xx.  6.  Witch  hanging  by  ©nr  fore-fathers  originates  here. 

nBy  this  is  meant;  one  animate,  all-powerfnl  being.  Ancient  Heliotry  and 
other  I’agan  forms,  most  of  which  treated  the  working  class  with  contempt 
and  cruelty  as  we  shall  show,  paid  homage  to  inanimate,  representative  gods. 

1 2  Exodus,  xx.  6.  13  Leviticus,  XX.  17. 


RACE  PECULIARITIES. 


16 


gentile,  an  effective  part  in  keeping  our  civilization  pure. 
The  command14  that  the  people  when  harvesting  their 
grain  and  grapes,  should  not  forget  those  who  are  less 
fortunate,  but  should  leave  some  for  them,  is  a  touching 
rebuke  to  the  niggardly  system  of  these  more  enlighten¬ 
ed  times.  One  remarkable  habit,  that  of  buying  and  sell¬ 
ing,  owning  and  profiting  upon  slaves,  even  of  their  own 
kindred,16  seems  inconsistent  and  cannot  again  enter  into 
practice.  It  also,  to  our  critical  understanding,  brings 
into  severe  reproach  and  doubt  the  sacred  or  divine  au¬ 
thorship  of  the  law  of  Moses.  Jesus  rectified  all  this. 

Most  of  the  customs  of  the  Hebrews  are  fixed.  The 
same  rules  established  in  Palestine  thirty-two  hundred 
years  ago  are  still  adhered  to.  It  is  true  that  at  that  time 
Judaea  was  a  farming  or  pastoral  country;  and  that  the 
Jews  of  to-day,  having  been  separated  by  defeat  and  per¬ 
secution,  scattered  and  distributed  to  all  portions  of  the 
world,  cannot  continue  their  original  pastoral  and  agricul¬ 
tural  vocations  and  so  have  become  merchants  and  mon¬ 
ey-lenders  and  have  assumed  the  various  methods  of  ob¬ 
taining  a  living  similarly  to  other  people.  It  is  also  true 
that  being  thus  isolated,  having  no  country,  and  obliged 
to  exist  in  the  competitive  world,  under  the  competitive 
idea,  they  act  among  outsiders  competitively.16  This  they 
do;  and  they  do  it  thoroughly. 


uLeviticus  xix.  9,  10.  is  Exodus  xxi.  2—8.  Our  object  in  brings 

ing  the  Jewish  question  in  here,  is  to  arrange  the  groundwork  before  bringing 
forward  the  great  movements  of  the  lowly,  enslaved  working  people,  who,  as 
will  be  seen,  had  not  only  their  grievance  but  their  distinct  Plant  of  Salvation 
from  trouble,  which  they  for  ages  followed. 
ltiSee  Millman,  'History  qf  the  Jews. 


CHAPTER  IL 


THE  INDO-EUROPEANS. 

THEIR  COMPETITIVE  SYSTEM. 

Religion  and  Politics  of  the  Indo-Europeans  Identical — Reason 
for  Religion  mixing  with  Movements  of  Labor — The  father 
the  Original  Slaveholder— His  Children  the  Original  Slaves 
— Both  the  Law  and  Religion  empowered  him  to  Kill  them 
— Work  of  Conscience  in  the  Labor  Problem. 


History  began  to  register  facts  and  to  throw  its  ear¬ 
liest  light  on  the  actions  of  the  human  race  about  the 
time  that  slavery  began  to  take  its  leave.  But  enough  of 
the  slave  system  always  remained  to  cast  its  dark  shad¬ 
ows  upon  life.  There  had,  previously  to  the  historic  rec¬ 
ord  and  ages  before  the  breaking  up  of  slavery,  been  an 
immense,  an  immeasurable  period  of  time  through  whose 
trackless  swamps  humanity  had  trod ;  for  the  weak,  uncer¬ 
tain  story  of  a  once  happy  reign  of  Neptune,1  we  are  for¬ 
ced  to  ignore  for  want  of  evidence.  When  we  reflect  that 
there  were  freedmen  or  emancipated  slaves  two  thousand 
years  before  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  and  that 
consequently  the  laboring  classes  have  been  struggling 
for  four  thousand  years,  writhing  out  from  their  slave  fet- 

i  Plato  says  (Laws,  iv.  0,  Bekk.,  L.  ed.),  that  a  great  while  before 
cities  were  ever  built,  as  is  told,  and  daring  the  reign  of  Saturn,  there  ex¬ 
isted  a  certain  extremely  happy  mode  of  government  to  regnlatethe  dwell¬ 
ing  of  men It  had  all  things  unrestrained,  yielding  spontaneously It 

was  governed  by  Daemons  of  a  diviner,  more  perfect  race.  Plutarch  (Nu- 
ma  Pompilius),  also  speaks  of  such  a  time  and  states  that  Numa  desired  to 
bring  back  those  happy  days  to  men.  Plutarch  (De  Definitione  Oraculonm 
18,),'  also  says  that  Saturn  slept  on  an  island  of  the  blessed.  But  it  was 
in  ancient  Italy,  Ct.  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  (Antiquitates  Romance , 
i.,  34,).  that  the  mythical  Saturn  and  Janus  chained  down  the  god  of  war 
and  closed  the  temples  against  belligerency  and  want.  The  conclusion,  af¬ 
ter  all  our  research  is,  that  the  whole  story  is  a  myth  based  upon  the  well 
know  i  longings  which  gave  shape  to  thousand*  of  Utopias  and  Messiahs 


49 


INDO-EUROPEAN  LABOR. 


ters  without  having  yet  fully  succeeded,  we  may  at  least, 
establish  a  basis  of  conjecture  as  to  the  time  it  required 
for  the  laboring  denizens  of  the  ancient  slave  system  to 
grow  to  a  conception  of  manhood  and  womanhood,  suffi¬ 
cient  to  break  their  first  bonds.  Of  the  purely  slave  epoch 
which  preceded  the  art  of  annals  we  have  little  but  con¬ 
jecture.  There  must  have  been  a  comparatively  high  civ¬ 
ilization  at  the  dawn  of  manumissions,  where  history  and 
archaeology  find  human  society  and  begin  gracefully  to 
transmit  to  us  its  deeds.  An  inconceivable  space  of  time 
must  have  intervened.  Let  us  attempt  to  make  history 
for  the  laboring  classes  from  conjectural  data  in  order 
to  connect  the  link  binding  the  known  with  those  dark 
abysses  of  the  unknown  in  antiquity. 

The  supposed  original  cradle  of  the  Aryan  family  from 
which  comes  the  Caucasian  or  Indo-European  type,  is 
Central  Asia.  Greeks  and  Romans  were  Aryan  Europe¬ 
ans;  Arabs  or  Ishmaelites,  Jews  or  Hebrews,  and  Phoeni¬ 
cians  belonged  to  the  Semitic  family.  We  have  already 
seen  that  the  Semitic  races,  especially  the  Jews,  were  us¬ 
ing  a  low  and  very  imperfect  and  unsatisfactory  form  of 
the  co-operative  ideal  in  place  of  the  Pagan  or  purely 
competitive  one,  as  a  basis  upon  which  to  build  their  so¬ 
ciety  and  their  civilization.  The  Aryans,  especially  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  on  the  contrary,  built  their  society 
and  their  civilization  upon  the  extreme  competitive  idea. 
The  one  ever  was  and  is,  mutual,  interacting,  loving,  char¬ 
itable,  rigidly  reverential  and  non- destructive;  the  other 
fierce,  warlike,  excessively  egoistic,  combative  and  destruc¬ 
tive.  Both  brave,  lofty,  intelligent,  capable,  and  suscep¬ 
tible  of  a  higher  development  of  physical  type  and  of 
intellectual  culture  than  any  other  branches  of  the  hu¬ 
man  race.2 

It  appears  from  all  the  evidences  that  the  first  form  of 
society  was  that  of  masters  and  slaves.*  The  extreme 


2  Under  the  ancient  idea,  religion  which  governed  political  aa  well  aa 
private  habits,  was  exclusively  based  upon  man-worship.  Zeus  or  Jupiter 
was  a  man  god.  Daemons  or  Lares  were  dead  men,  imagined,  all  through 
Pagan  times  to  be  still  influential  for  good  or  evil.  Cf.  Pausaniaa,  Descip - 
lio  Grcecice,  v.  14.  At  Olympia  the  first  two  prayers  were  offered  at  the 
focal  lire,  always  burning  in  honor  of  these  dead  men  and  of  Zeus. 

sGranier  de  Cassagnac,  Histoire  des  Classes  Ouvribrss  et  des  Classes 
Bourgeoises,  Chaps,  iii.  iv.  V. 


ORIGIN  OF  BONDAGE. 


49 


lowliness  of  the  laboring  man’s  condition  at  that  remote 
period  can  easily  be  imagined  when  we  consider  that  all 
the  children  of  the  aristocratic  household  except  the  old¬ 
est  son  bom  of  the  real  wife  and  legal  mother,  were  to¬ 
tally  unrecognized  by  law.  All  except  this  heir,  were 
originally  slaves.  In  fact  this  was  the  origin  of  slavery. 
The  first  human  law  was,  long  before  being  written,  a  law 
of  entailment  upon  primogeniture.  When  the  patrician 
or  owner  of  the  property,  which  in  those  times,  mostly 
consisted  of  lands,  died,  the  property  did  not  fall  to  the 
children  or  by  testament,  as  is  now  the  case.  It  fell  to 
the  oldest  male  child.  No  other  person  of  that  house¬ 
hold  had  any  claim  upon  it.  The  deceased  father  may 
have  had  many  other  children,  but  these  became  subjects 
to  the  manor ;  and  frequently  they  were  very  numerous.4 

This  eldest  son  and  inheritor  was,  by  usage  of  that 
day,  obliged  to  bury  his  father  within  the  house  or  court 
and  worship  him  as  a  god.  The  original  workingman  was 
not  even  a  citizen.6  There  is  no  lack  of  testimony  regard¬ 
ing  this  curious  custom  which  was  really  the  religion 
and  the  rule  or  groundwork  upon  which  stood  the  anci¬ 
ent  competitive  regulation  of  labor.  Let  us  now  trace 
this  new  family  in  order  to  get  at  the  origin  and  perpet¬ 
uation  of  human  slavery. 

There  being  in  primitive  ages  no  power  as  now  exists, 
behind  this  new  heir  and  administrator  or  despot  of  the 
paternity,  he  easily  becomes  an  absolute  lord  or  monarch. 
To  make  this  unjust  and  wonderful  civilization  appear 
more  comprehensible  and  home-like,  we  may  assume  fa¬ 
miliar  names.  A  rich  farmer,  one  who  has  inherited  his 
property  from  his  father,  dies,  leaving  many  children, 

4  Fustel  de  Coulange,  Citi  Antique,  c.  vii.  pp.  76—89  Droit  de  Success¬ 
ion.  Granier,  Hist,  des  Classes  Ouvrieres ,  p.  69 :  uAinsi,  nous  pouvons 
dire  maintenant  que  nous  avons  trouv6  les  premiers  enclaves  qui  furent; 
c5  tstaient  les  enfants.”  As  to  the  great  numbers  in  families,  see  Iliad, 
XXIV.  v.  496.  6.  7; 

Ilej'Trj/covTa  fioi  rjaau,  or’  rjhvOov  vies  A’^aiAr 
EVvea/cai'Se/ca  p.ev  /not  i^s  ea  vriSvo s  r/ixap, 

Toils  aAAovs  /not  erucTov  ivl  fx.eyapoi.an  yvvatKes. 

So  also  Plutarch.  Theseus,  3,  says  that  Pallas  had  60  children.  Gideon 
had  70,  according  to  Josephus,  Antiquities  of  the  Jews,  Book  V.  Chapter  ix. 
Apson  had  60;  Jair  30  children. 

&  Bucher,  Aufstande  der  unfreien  Arheiter,  S.  11.  ‘Ter  beste  (antike) 
Staat  schliesst  die  Arheiter  vom  Biirgerrechte  aus;  und  wo  sie  dassclbe  er- 
halten  konnten,  blieben  sie  stets  eine  misachtete  und  eindusslose  Klasse.” 


60 


INDG-EUROPEAN  LABOR. 


boys  and  girls.  There  may  be  several  daughters  senior 
to  his  oldest  son.  This  latter,  however,  because  the  first¬ 
born  male,  comes  into  sole  possession  of  the  paternal  es¬ 
tate.  The  girls  are  of  a  sympathetic,  unsuspecting  na¬ 
ture  and  being  also  less  physically  powerful,  they  make 
little  or  no  resistance.  The  boys  are  young;  and  being 
in  this  tender  age  are,  after  a  certain  amount  of  struggle, 
in  shape  of  battles,  with  words  and  other  weapons,  also 
compelled  to  yield.  This  bully  moreover  to  accomplish 
his  purpose,  also  draws  upon  the  superstition  of  the  un¬ 
fortunate  children  and  hides  the  wickedness  of  his  avar¬ 
ice  behind  the  sanctuary  of  religious  rites  over  their  dead 
father  who  practiced  the  same  cunning,  force  and  craft 
before.  The  bully  thus  originated  the  great  law  of  en- 
tailment  upon  primogeniture,  and  has  never  once  loosen¬ 
ed  his  grip  to  this  day. 

To  resume  our  home-drawn,  practical  illustration  of  the 
origin  of  this  ancient  law  of  usurpation,  it  may  be  said, 
that  not  a  penny  can  possibly  fall  to  one  of  the  many  sis¬ 
ters  and  brothers  thus  cast  out,  although  they  had  con¬ 
tributed  their  labor  toward  the  creation  of  the  estate.  He 
becomes  the  supreme  ruler  over  the  property.  By  vir¬ 
tue  of  the  arrogant  law  of  primogeniture,  ancient  and 
hallowed  as  the  adoration  of  the  vestal  fires,  this  unique 
successor  becomes,  without  formality,  the  monarch.  But 
his  possessorship  is  not  confined  to  the  ownership  of  the 
real  estate  of  the  paternity.  He  also  owns  the  stock  and 
fixtures  thereto  belonging.  Among  the  rest  of  the  stock 
and  fixtures  are  the  brothers  and  sisters;  both  those  who 
are  pure,  or  born  of  his  own  mother  whose  character  and 
chastity,  especially  in  ancient  times,  were  always  beyond 
reproach,  and  also  those  more  numerous  children  other¬ 
wise  born.*  These  all  fall  to  him  also,  as  part  of  the  in¬ 
heritance  !  He  is  monarch  absolute.1  He  has  become  a 
pater  familias ;  and  as  such,  has  the  power  of  his  father 
before  him.  No  law  exists  that  can  restrict  his  will. 

« In  ancient  days,  as  shown  in  note  4,  they  were  often  very  numerous 
For  the  law  giving  license  to  concubinage,  see  Galas,  Twelve  Table*. 

7  Dionysius  of  Halcarnassus,  Archoeologia  Romana,  or  Roman  Antiquities, 
liber  II.  cap.  25 ;  Seven  Essays  on  Ancient  Greece,  Oxford.  1852,  p. 
62*.  “The  state  grave  parents  the  power,  atrocious  and  unnatural,  to 
kill  them;  he— the  father— could  refuse  to  preserve  and  rear  hi*  own  off¬ 
spring.”  See  likewise  Aristotle,  Politic,  4. 


THE  ANCIENT  COULD  KILL  HIS  CHILD .  57 


He  cannot  liberate  bis  poor  slaves; — for  it  is  an  assum¬ 
ed  episode  in  prehistoric  conditions  that  we  are  describ¬ 
ing;  it  antedates  the  era  of  manumissions,  although  the 
same  wrongs  existed  long  afterwards.  But  he  can  pun¬ 
ish  his  own  slaves — his  brother,  sister  or  his  child— with 
death.  He  can  sell  them.  He  can  whip  them  and  im¬ 
pose  upon  them  the  most  cruel  of  tortures.  Tiger  or 
lamb  is  his  option. 

His  religion  is  as  aristocratical,  as  brutal  and  exclusive 
as  his  economic  and  social  policy.  Unlike  the  mild  dem¬ 
ocracy  infused  into  the  worship  of  present  civilizations, 
his  religion  cannot  tolerate  even  the  thought  that  all  may 
do  homage  at  a  common  shrine  or  adore  a  common  Fath¬ 
er.  To  allow  this  would  be  to  cancel  the  distinction  be¬ 
tween  master  and  slave.8  The  father  of  this  autocrat, 
buried  under  the  hearthstone,  has  himself  become  the 
only  god  whom  this  man  may  worship.  Thus  every  nerve 
is  active  in  perpetuating,  glorifying  and  rendering  aristo¬ 
cratic  and  lordly  the  prestige  of  his  house.9  The  sacred 
altar  is  his  father’s  grave  over  which  is  kept  a  fire  that 
is  never  allowed  to  be  extinguished.10  His  own  father 
thus  becomes  his  tutelary  god  and  guardian,  watching, 
like  a  veritable  spook,  with  a  jealous  eye  over  his  inter¬ 
ests.  Should  this  sacred  fire  be  extinguished,  the  acci¬ 
dent  is  punished  with  an  ignominious  death.11  This  par¬ 
ent-god,  like  the  man  when  walking  on  this  earth,  is  be¬ 
lieved  to  be  subject  to  hunger  and  thirst.  He  must  con¬ 
sequently  be  fed  with  actual  food ;  with  bread  and  wine, 
butter,  honey  and  the  purest  delicacies  of  the  table.  If 
this  be  neglected,  the  propitious  smiles  and  favors  which 


sFustel  de  Coulanges,  CM  Antique,  chap.  iv.  p.  83.  Here  this  student 
explains  the  Pagan  modo  of  sacrifice,  including  the  whimsical  old  su¬ 
perstition  of  the  Lares,  or  the  remains  of  said  parent  after  burial,  to 
which  this  living  heir  gave  offerings  of  food,  such  as  milk,  clarified 
butter,  wine,  ect. 

9  In  Greek,  this  altar  was  called  Bw/uo?  and  'E<m'a;  in  Latin,  Ara, 
Focus—  the  focus  of  all  thoughts,  prayer,  moral  concern;  the  shrine. 

10  This  statement  is  not  absolutely  exact;  for  the  fir*s  were,  on  cer¬ 
tain  rare  occasions,  renovated.  See  Fustel,  Cite  Antique,  p.  23,  Feu  sacre. 

11  Centuries  afterwards,  when  there  had  become  many  such  aristocratic 
houses,  such  masters  as  were  friendly  with  each  other,  found  it  necessary  for 
mutual  protection  largely  from  the  wrath  of  these  very  outcasts,  to  form 
a  city  of  aristocratic  houses.  A  central  city-altar  or  focus  was  adopted, 
a  central  city-fire  kindled  and  a  Vigil  or  maiden  watcher  was  stationed, 
to  keep  its  fires  glowing  forever.  Punishment  of  a  most  horrible  death  was 
i.ifiicted  upon  her  for  letting  these  sacred  fires  die  out. 


52 


INDO-EUROPEAN  LABOR.  ' 


prayer  invokes,  are  turned,  by  the  slighted  and  angry 
ghost  against  the  perpetrators  of  the  negligence  The 
law  of  agnation  or  descent  in  the  male  line,  rules  severe¬ 
ly  in  this  family;  and  consequently  the  female  portions 
of  it  are  the  especial  objects  of  the  master’s  power.  The 
lord  himself  being  supreme,  may  commit  acts  of  libertin¬ 
ism  such  as  would  consign  others  to  the  punishment  of 
death.  Should  his  wife,  the  mater  familias,  vary  from 
the  rules  of  family  regularity,  it  would  place  in  doubt 
the  descent  of  the  paternity.  It  would  cause  it  to  be¬ 
come  a  question  whether  her  first-born  son,  the  inheritor, 
were  really  his  own  and  of  the  pure  blood — the  agnate. 
Should  the  deception  be  so  veiled  as  to  escape  the  mas¬ 
ter’s  knowledge,  there  yet  remains  a  still  more  terrible 
source  of  disclosure.  The  buried  gods  themselves,  om¬ 
nipotent  and  omniscient,  jealous  and  disturbed,  feeling  the 
dignity  of  their  noble  line  defiled,12  their  august  preroga¬ 
tives  encroached  upon  by  a  pretender  who  might  in  turn 
at  death  usurp  the  beatitudes  of  the  penates13  and  the 
holy  altar,  are  aroused.  Conscience  in  the  guilty  mother 
becomes  too  galling  to  permit  of  life’s  longer  endurance 
and  death  must  be  the  consequence  after  the  confession, 
and  the  error  rectified  by  the  destruction  of  the  intruder. 
Here  is  the  key  to  that  extraordinary  tenacity  of  ancient 
ladies  in  wedlock  with  the  noble  or  gens  families,  to  vir¬ 
tue.14  The  Lares ,  or  redoubtable  ghosts,  are,  as  we  now 
begin  to  understand,  charged  with  the  office  of  chastizing 
such  criminals  ;  also  of  watching  all  the  thoughts,  words 
and  deeds  going  on  in  the  sacred  penetralia — penates — of 
the  living  lord’s  household.  So  egotistical  and  selfish  is 
this  religious  culture  that  none  but  the  family  can  pray 
at  that  altar  and  no  one  can  be  prayed  for  except  mem¬ 
bers  who  have  been  in  high  standing.  A  thing  so  degrad¬ 
ed  as  a  being  compelled  to  subsist  by  labor  has  no  place 
there,  no  family,  no  shrine.  Family  initiation  made  it  worse. 

But  we  have  only  entered  upon  the  description  of  this 
despot.  His  most  revolting  attributes  are  yet  to  be  put 
into  history.  All  the  creatures  of  his  household,  with 

12  Prom  this  maybe  traced  the  origin  of  blood-distinctions  still  boasted 
of  and  tenaciously  cultivated ;  in  dynasties,  as  divine  right  •  in  families,  as  pres¬ 
tige.  The  horror  against  this  sin  was  inexpressible;  and  a  liason  with  one 
of  the  outcasts  rendered  the  crime  trebly  hepions. 

is  See  Livy’s  Lay  of  Lua-etia.  14  Plutarch,  Qucestiones  Romance,  51. 


ORIGIN  OF  FRIESTCRAFT. 


53 


the  exception  of  the  noble  mother  and  her  first-born  male 
child,  are  slaves.16  They  may  be,  as  we  have  said,  broth¬ 
ers  and  sisters,  or  even  children  born  to  amorous  coercion10 
of  this  thus  privileged  despot ;  yet  they  have  no  claim  to 
anything  but  his  sympathies.  Having  no  legalized  rights 
they  are  menials;  left  without  education  they  become 
sycophantic  and  unmanly.  Their  food  is  coarse.  Only 
the  lord  and  lady  of  the  house  are  entitled  to  wheat  bread. 
They  are  glad  to  get  peas  and  second-rate  bread.11  Should 
too  many  infants  be  born,  a  council  is  called  and  it  is  de¬ 
liberated  whether  the  little  innocents  shall  be  saved  or 
killed.18  The  children  being  slaves,  are  not  supposed  to 
be  supplied  with  a  thing  so  dignifying  as  a  soul.19  The 
most  abject  superstition  reigns.  For  a  slave  or  a  strang¬ 
er  to  enter  the  apartments  of  this  lord,  is  an  offense,  impi¬ 
ous  and  unpardonable.  The  lord’s  own  parents  and  an¬ 
cestors  before  them  for  generations  back,  are  buried  un¬ 
der  this  enclosure  soul  and  body;  and  their  jealous  manes 
or  ghosts,20  are  believed  to  be  omnipresent  and  on  guard, 
with  power  to  repel  or  punish  the  sacrilege.  The  man¬ 
or  house  is  situated  within  the  holy  court.  The  common 
slaves  and  the  children  constituting  the  true  laboring  ele¬ 
ment,  are  taught  the  most  extreme  reverence.  Should 
they  violate  any  of  the  rigorous  rules  they  are  subject  to 
punishment;  if  the  lord  of  the  manor  wills  it,  with  death. 
Thus  deep  superstition,  hard,  unpaid  labor,  hard  fare  and 
degradation  are  enforced  by  the  cunning  wiles  of  priest¬ 
craft  ;  for  love  of  profits  from  labor  seems  to  originate  or 
urge  ancient  priest-power.  This  superstition  is  the  more 
necessarily  rigorous,  since  lack  of  faith  is  known  to  be 
dangerous,  leading  to  sedition  and  rebellion. 

is  Fustel  de  Coulanges,  CM  Antique,  I.  c.  i.-iv.  Antiques  Ci-oyances.  From 
these  phenomena  of  the  ancient  family  may  be  traced  the  origin  of  the  belief 
in  ghosts,  spooks,  spectres,  haunted  abodes  etc. ;  idem,  pp.  127-30 

16  Plutarch,  Solon,  xiii.  n  Horace,  Epistolce,  lib.  II.  Epist.  i.  v.  123; 
“Vivit  siiiquis  et  pane  secundo  ”  Poor  fare  for  labor  continued  late.  Of 
course,  where  much  harmony  and  love  existed  the  despot  could  be  generous. 

is  This  practice  held  good  among  the  Dorians  even  after  Greeks  began 
to  acquire  the  art  of  making  historical  records.  See  Plutarch,  Lycurgm,  xvi. 

i9IIomer,  Odyssey,  lib,  XVII,  The  passage  here  alluded  to  refers  to  a 
comparatively  enlightened  period.  As  late  as  Plato,  when  emancipations 
and  resistance  had  created  a  middle  class,  it  was  doubted  whether  working- 
people  had  all  of  the  attributes  recognized  in  true  members  of  the  human 
family.  Of.  Plato,  Rep.  vi.  9;  Ixxi.  Laws,  vi  ;  Homer,  Odyssey,  xvii.  332. 
Plato  wanted  slaves  and  believed  in  the  inferiority  of  all  laborers 

20  Cicero,  Fro  Domo  ;  Tusculanarum  Disputatiovum  Libri,  I.  16;  “Sub  terra 
censetant  le'iquiam  vitam  agi  mortuorum.”  Eurij  ides,  Alcestis,  163;  Hecuba. 


64 


INDO-EUROPEAN  LABOR . 


The  lord  of  the  estate  permits  of  no  social  or  religious 
mixtures  with  other  people  or  other  estates.  There  are  no 
tenants,  no  neighbors,  and  consequently  few  sociabilities. 
Egoism  is  so  severe  that  little  of  the  kind  can  be  tolerated. 
It  is  master  and  slave;  no  intermediaries.  Communities 
are  unknown.  Promiscuity  which  makes  the  village,21  the 
community,  the  social  gathering,  the  free  sports  of  chil¬ 
dren  and  general  merriment  are  interdicted  by  this  pro¬ 
found  solemnity  based  upon  an  adoration  of,  and  implicit 
obedience  in  one  central  ruler;  a  man  who  is  the  inherit¬ 
or;  who,  by  virtue  of  this  inheritance  giving  him  power, 
and  of  this  egoism  giving  him  will,  assumes,  as  through 
the  countless  ages  his  ancestors  assumed,  to  be  the  sole 
owner  in  life,  and  the  immortal  to  be  worshiped,  caressed, 
entreated,  propitiated,  glorified,  after  death  ! 22 

We  have  thus  described,  as  if  actually  existing  among 
us  at  present,  a  scene  whose  stage  was  once  this  earth;23 
whose  unhappy  actors  were  workingmen  and  women  and 
whose  managers  were  then  as  now,  the  capitalists;  a  scene 
which  mankind,  grace  to  an  eternal  resistance,  in  turmoils, 
servile  wars,  and  innumerable  social  communes,  has  largely 
outgrown.  It  is  a  scene  which  no  civilized  society  could 
at  present  tolerate.  Yet  it  was  the  almost  all-prevailing  one 
among  mankind  of  the  distant  past  in  Greece  and  Italy. 

Lordship,  therefore,  was  the  very  first  condition  in  the 
establishment  of  society ;  slavery  its  antithesis,  the  sec¬ 
ond.  Of  the  middle  class  occupying  the  great  gap  wide¬ 
ly  separating  the  lord  from  the  slave  there  was  none. 

«i  The  ancient  house  was  situated  within  the  sacred  enclosure.  This  enclos¬ 
ure  was  divided,  among  the  Greeks,  into  two  parts;  the  first  being  the  court. 
The  house  was  in  the  second  part  The  sacred  focus  was  placed  near  the  cen¬ 
ter  of  the  enclosure.  It  was  consequently  at  the  foot  of  the  court,  near  the 
entrance  of  the  house.  The  Romans  had  it  differently,  though  essentially  the 
same  The  focus  remained,  as  in  Greeoe,  in  the  center  of  the  enclosure,  but  the 
build  ings  were  placed  around  it  leaving  an  inner  court;  the  walls  of  the  houses 
rising  around  it  on  all  sides.  The  Greeks  used  to  say  that  religion  taught  them 
how  to  build  houses.  Fustel  de  Coulanges,  Gift  Antique,  pp.  62—85. 

22  In  Greek  the  earia  Secrnoiva,  in  Latin  the  Lar  familiaris,  were  key-words 
of  the  ancient  pagan  family.  Etymologically  this  is  the  origin  of  the  term  despot. 

23  We  have  not  space  to  make  copious  quotations  from  the  numerous  au¬ 
thors  whose  descriptions  and  hints  we  have  ransacked  in  search  of  the  proof 
of  this  condition  of  ancient  affairs ;  but  recommend  the  doubtful  to  the  following 
commentators  and  original  writers :  Granier  de  Csssaguac,  Histoire  des  Classes 
Ouvri'eres  dec.  Chapters  lii.  iv  v.  De  Coulanges,  Cite  Antique,  passim  ;  to  the  po¬ 
ems  of  Ilomer;  to  almost  any  of  the  voluminous  works  of  Cicero;  to  the  Ora- 
tions  of  Demosthenes :  to  Orelli's  Inscriptionum  Collectio  ;  to  Bockh’s  Corpus  Jn- 
scriplionum  Grcecarum  ;  to  Euripides,  Alcestis  and  especially  Hecuba,  passim ;  tc 
Plato’s  Creatiom,  Protag.  30-4,  Thecel.  30-2,  Rep.  21  ;  to  Pausanias.  Descriptiu  Gra> 
me ;  to  Macrobius,  Somnium  Scipionis  &  Saturnaliorum  Libri  and  many  others. 


ON  THE  ORIGINAL  STRIKE. 


55 


That  came  later.  For  fully  six  thousand  years  it  has  been 
growing  more  and  more  numerous  until  in  the  nineteenth 
century  it  may  be  said  to  have  almost  filled  the  great  cav¬ 
ity  and  is  now  pressing  in  all  directions  to  force  the  ex¬ 
tinction  of  both  those  aged  originals. 

Theoretically,  this  middle  or  intermediary  class  betwixt 
lord  and  menial,  owner  and  outcast,  immortal  and  perish¬ 
able,  is  perfect;  occupying  the  ambrosial  vales  of  Utopia 
where  men  are  no  longer  struggling  for  existence  against 
despotism,  ignorance  and  death.  In  theory  we  should  sup¬ 
pose  it  an  altruistic  state  in  which  men  looking  upward  to 
wisdom  and  mutual  love,  and  backward  to  past  ignorance 
and  competitive  greed  and  hatreds,  would  erect  their  so¬ 
ciety  and  their  government  upon  a  plan  wherein  neither 
lords  nor  menials  could  have  law  or  foothold.  Such  would 
be  the  revolution  realized — the  revolution  that  began  with 
manumissions.  But  practically — although  many  are  dream¬ 
ing  of  this  ultimatum — we  are  far  from  it.  Lords  still 
exist  though  with  milder  domination  and  slaves  yet  remain 
though  on  a  higher  plain. 

M.  de  Laveleye  informs  us  that  communities  held  lands 
in  common  for  the  people  in  times  past24  and  cites  an 
abundance  of  instances  in  proof ;  but  while  this  may  all  be 
true,  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  the  original  condition  was 
that  of  masters  and  slaves.  Particularly  was  this  the  case 
with  the  people  from  whose  records  we  extract  these  data 
— the  Aryan  race.  It  is  the  perfectly  natural  condition, 
explainable  in  the  theory  of  development.  In  the  Aryan, 
especially  its  Indo-European  type,  we  see  the  original  the¬ 
ory  of  development  verified ;  and  it  comes  to  us  from  pre¬ 
historic  data  which  philology,  archaeology  and  reason  har¬ 
moniously  combine  to  verify.  What  would  man,  primi¬ 
tively  a  wild  animal,  naturally  do?  Would  he  not  be  just 
like  all  animals?  It  wants  only  the  observation  of  an  hour 
to  note  that  a  group  of  barnyard  fowls,  soon  after  being 
put  into  a  yard  begin  fighting  for  mastery  or  lordship ; 
and  this  conflict  will  not  stop  until  the  strongest,  clever¬ 
est  chanticleer  has  mastered  every  adversary.  This  also 

2*  De  Laveleye,  Primitve  Property,  pp.  137.  In  attempting  to  prove  these  no¬ 
tions  about  primitive  property,  this  author  is  confronted  at  the  outset,  with  the 
fact  that  he  is  seeking  to  rebut  the  principle  of  development ;  his  village  com¬ 
munities  are  a  late,  not  a  “ primitive ”  condition. 


INDO-EUROPEAN  LABOR. 


56 

must  be  said  of  a  herd  of  cattle  grazing  on  a  common. 
The  strongest  steer,  after  a  full  test  of  its  muscular 
forces,  becomes  master  of  the  flock  and  remains  so. 
With  perfect  truth  it  might  be  further  remarked  that 
should  no  individual  of  the  herd  be  of  the  male  gender, 
the  contest  for  mastery  will  be  between  the  heifers  ;  thus 
seeming  to  prove  the  principle  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
without  any  reference  to  the  instinct  of  perpetuation  of 
species.  Even  plants,  in  their  struggle  for  existence  are 
constantly  in  the  competitive  field,  warring  with  each 
other — the  tares  rooting  out  the  wheat — until  the  hand 
of  the  reasoning  cultivator  lays  low  the  obnoxious  weeds. 
Thus  it  is  shown  that  the  principle  of  individual  ascend¬ 
ency  with  its  acknowledgement,  is  the  original  and  nat¬ 
ural  one.  It  is  the  quiritare  dominium.  The  law  of  nat¬ 
ural  selections  and  survival  of  the  fittest  applies  without 
the  aid  of  reason.  Naturalists  who  have  lavished  great 
care  and  honest  pains  in  search  of  proof  of  this  philosophy 
in  plants,  animals  and  men,26  have  scarcely  brought  their  in¬ 
vestigations  to  bear  upon  that  new,  almost  supernal  power 
of  reason,  which  some  admit  to  have  come  later,  as  a  re¬ 
sult  of  evolution. 

If  we  are  allowed  to  tread  the  penetralia  of  this  philos¬ 
ophy  with  the  eye  and  ear  of  a  critic  we  shall  find  in  the 
law  of  natural  selections  the  bed  rock  of  brute  competi¬ 
tion.  While  beholding  this  with  the  conviction  of  its 
truth  and  forced  to  admit  it  as  the  fiat  of  growth,  we 
shall  see  that  it  rests  upon  the  toppling  trestles  of  brute 
force.  We  shall  find  that  the  superstructure  resting 
upon  these  abutments  is  time-worn  and  rotton.  Its  spans 
are  becoming  unsafe;  its  planking  hoof- worn;  its  string¬ 
ers  sway  with  the  winds  of  newer  things  and  we  find  our¬ 
selves  dizzy  peering  into  the  angry  foam  of  progress  be¬ 
low.  As  long  as  there  are  only  masters  and  slaves  the 
strongest  brutes  may  survive;  but  when  the  new  idea  of 
manumission  arrived  which  was  forced  upon  the  masters 
by  the  growth  of  population,  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
changed  hands.  If  we  accept  the  doctrine  of  natural 

as  We  here  Incorrectly  place  man  above  animals  In  deference  to  t  he  egoism 
he  has  not  outgrown.  Especially  is  man  to  be  considered  and  classed  among 
animals  under  the  philosophy  of  the  Attest,  since  this  very  survival  la  mostly 
the  result  of  the  competitive  straggle,  akin  to  brute  force  and  antedating  tbs 
milder  forces  of  reason. 


ORIGIN  OF  HUMAN  SYMPATHY. 


57 

selection  based  upon  brute  force  we  accept  the  survival  oi 
the  fittest  as  its  corollary.  So  long  as  the  doctrine  is  so 
based  it  remains  undeniably  true.  Reason  is  not  there. 

But  with  the  advent  of  reason  there  came  also  sym¬ 
pathy,  civilization,  enlightenment;  and  these  have  already 
so  filled  the  world  with  mutual  or  altruistic  sentiment  that 
the  working  classes  of  both  Europe  and  America  are  now 
combining  with  a  determination  to  drive  from  the  world 
the  whole  brute  force  upon  which  the  old  theory  is  based. 
They  will  not  longer  hear  to  the  competitive  principle 
which  holds  up  the  shrewdest  and  strongest  as  fittest  to 
survive.  They  demand  the  extinction  of  competitory 
force  and  insist  upon  equal  opportunities  for  co-operation 
such  as  will  result  in  the  survival  of  all.  They  are  thus 
ushering  in  the  era  of  reason.  In  disenthralling  their 
species  from  the  competitive  system  of  the  isolated  in¬ 
dividual  and  establishing  them  on  the  co-operative  or  al¬ 
truistic  system  they  procure  the  revolution.  They  usher 
in  the  era  of  the  survival  of  all  and  banish  from  the  world 
the  culture  of  darlings,  the  reign  of  partiality,  the  pres¬ 
tige  of  masters  and  the  servility  of  slaves.  But  as  force 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  law  of  natural  selections  and  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  so  reason,  its  moral  antithesis,  must 
be  the  bottom  rock  upon  which  the  new  mutualism  is 
founded. 

We  cannot  leave  this  theoretical  dissertation  without 
some  reflections  upon  the  ghastly  immorality  and  the  re¬ 
turn  to  insatiate  selfishness  which  this  new  philosophy  of 
the  survival  of  the  fittest  inculcates;  and  must  submit 
that  it  not  only  logically  inculcates  an  arid  dreariness  of 
w  ords,  but  has  already  produced  and  is  producing  wither¬ 
ing  and  demoralizing  effects.  We  shall  submit  that  the 
religion  of  Jesus,  planted  by  a  manual  laborer  and  form¬ 
ing  the  basis  of  hope  upon  which  stands  the  great  labor 
movement  of  our  own  time  has  been  severely  attacked, 
stamped  as  a  calamity  and  trodden  under  foot,  notwith¬ 
standing  the  fact  that  this  plan  of  faith  has  been  the  power 
that  openly  struck  the  first  well  organized  blow  at  the 
system  of  masters  and  slaves  and  boldly  championed  it 
as  a  principle ;  and  in  essence  it  has  never  since  shrunk 
from  its  prodigious  task  toward  realizing  the  much  con¬ 
tested  doctrine  of  human  equality. 


58 


INDO-EUROPEAN  LABOR. 


Viewed  from  a  standpoint  of  mere  comparative  strength 
of  organized  muscle  and  brain,  or  of  the  low  cunning  and 
prowess  which  wrench  from  the  weak  and  unwary  what 
they  do  not  contribute  to  produce,  this  theory  of  survival 
is  undeniably  logical.  But  these  forces  are  the  old,  orig¬ 
inal  ones  and  strictly  belong  to  a  period  prior  to  the  ad¬ 
vent  of  a  society  enlightened  and  refined  by  reason.  They 
are  animal  and  are  of  the  ages  of  bullies  and  of  clubs. 
Why  we  confront  such  theorists  is  that  this  philosophy 
does  not  keep  march  with  the  very  power  that  gives  them 
insight  into  it — reason.  The  original  state  was  egotist¬ 
ical,  with  brutal  force — forcible  possession.  The  next  was 
arbitration,  discussion,  conciliation — all  the  struggles  of 
reason.  The  former  occupied  an  immense,  unmeasured 
period  of  time,  the  latter  has  also  had  its  vista  of  tedious, 
unhappy  ages ;  for  since  the  first  glimmerings  of  history 
and  archaeology  it  has  numbered  between  four  and  five 
thousand  years  and  its  millennium  is  still  far  away.  It  is 
the  transition  period ;  the  passage  from  pure  brute  force 
and  labor  ordered  by  masters  and  performed  by  slaves 
with  survival  of  the  fittest,  to  the  pure  era  of  reason,  mut¬ 
ual  love  and  mutual  care,  with  the  survival  of  all.  Such 
is  the  revolution. 

Whoever,  therefore,  at  this  enlightened  day,  forgetting 
his  reason,  the  very  weapon  he  wields  with  which  to  grasp 
his  inspirations,  allows  this  aged  original,  because  it  is 
yet  true  of  the  beast  or  the  plant,  to  usurp  the  domain  of 
reason  self-won  in  the  struggle  of  ages,26  returns  to  the 
dogma  that  because  the  survival  of  the  fittest  has  been 
true  of  snarling  beasts,  of  the  plants  and  of  the  club-and- 
weapon  age  of  men,  it  is  also  true  of  men  in  a  state  of  rea¬ 
son  and  refinement,  is  going  backward  dragging  reason 
with  him  into  the  caves  of  the  troglodyte. 

Let  us  glance  at  the  moral  effect  upon  the  mind,  of 
persons  in  search  of  wealth  and  other  means  of  happiness 
natural  to  our  lot  in  the  competitive  world.  A  student  of 
evolution  is  constrained  by  perusing  the  pages  of  Lucre  - 

26  Mr.  Darwin,  a  thoughtful  and  thoroughly  careful  writer  refrained  from 
pushing  his  argument  on  thi -  subject  farther  than  it  applies  to  energy  without 
reason.  A  careful  student  of  Darwin  will  perceive  that  he  always  uses  the  low¬ 
er  order  of  life  as  proof ;  such  as  plants,  birds,  fishes,  and  the  other  animals.  He 
clings  to  this,  not  venturing  into  the  domain  of  the  reasoning  power,  which  is 
alone  capable  to  grasp  the  labor  problem. 


ANNIHILATION  OF  CONSCIENCE. 


tius,  Vogt,  Spencer,  Darwin  and  others,  to  view  man  as  a 
creature  without  an  immortal  soul.  Through  the  doctrine 
of  development  as  explained  by  Darwin,  men  are  taught 
to  understand  this  perishability  merely  as  a  logical  corol¬ 
lary  of  the  premise  itself.27  The  theory  carries  with  it 
the  irrepressible  deduction  that  if  man  has  an  immortal 
soul  he  has,  himself,  been  the  maker  of  it.  The  theory 
from  the  first,  assumes  that  he  is  a  creature  grown  from  a 
long  line  of  consequents,  each  an  effect  of  causes  natural 
to  this  world.  This  is  evolution.  It  holds  that  motion 
and  heat  acting  upon  the  material  spread  out  upon  this 
earth  will  of  themselves,  generate  life ;  and  that  from 
cells  or  matrices  of  slime  it  calls  protoplasm — the  assumed 
earliest  forms  of  life — come  shape,  growth  and  variety, 
some  of  which  in  time  have  reached  as  high  a  develop¬ 
ment  as  reasoning  men,  Nor  are  these  ideas  confined  to, 
or  the  work  of,  the  benighted  and  superstitious.  They 
are  gaining  ground  among  the  most  thoroughly  respect¬ 
able  and  learned  ;  so  much  so  that  it  is  already  danger¬ 
ous  for  the  followers  of  the  old  belief  upheld  by  Plato  and 
Moses,  to  criticize  or  compare  arguments  against  the 
ponderous  weight  and  increasing  multiplicity  of  proof  in 
its  support.  So  irrefutable  is  the  evidence  which  our  in¬ 
defatigable  diggers  in  science  have  accumlated,  that  from 
the  timorous  Hspings  of  a  few  years  ago  it  has  become 
a  creed  for  the  army  of  science ;  and  is  claimed  by  nat¬ 
uralists,  by  comparative  philologists  and  historiographers, 
by  archaeologists  and  others  in  the  field  of  ethnical  re¬ 
search,  to  be  the  key  of  the  new  discovery. 

What  then  can  science  do  for  the  immortal  soul.  ?  Man, 
certainly,  away  back  in  that  night  of  time  of  which  we 
are  going  to  write  a  history,  while  yet  an  animal  and  brute, 
a  homo  troglodyticus,  not  yet  knowing  how  to  build  a  fire 
or  hardly  to  wield  a  club,  could  not  have  possessed  so 
noble  and  highly  .  developed  a  thing  as  an  immortal  soul  l 
Or  if  we  can  conceive  this  to  be  possible,  what  shall  we 
think  of  him  during  the  still  earlier  cycles  of  his  existence 
in  forms  yet  cruder  and  more  remote  1  Further  than  this 

a'  In  making  these  reflections  we  do  not  set  up  a  disclaimer  against  the  the¬ 
ory  of  development.  The  object  is  to  show  the  pernicious  effect  upon  the  mind 
of  masses,  should  this  theory  become  universally  acknowledged,  and  taught, 
before  the  competitive  system  is  superseded  by  the  co-operative  or  socialistic. 


6v 


INDO-EUROPEAN  LABOR . 


we  may  in  our  play  of  fancy  measure  him  at  the  dawn  of 
his  development  of  reason,  which  is  a  faculty  higher  but 
less  unerring  than  instinct.  Reason  is  a  gift  which  must 
be  guided  by  social  laws.  Not  having  these,  man  must 
have  been  a  maniac  ;  either  thus,  or  he  preserved  enough 
of  instinct  to  guide  reason.  The  reason  of  a  madman 
turns  to  cunning.28  Cunning,  we  are  told,  is  the  weapon 
this  ferocious,  selfish,  competing,  primeval  being  first 
used  to  work  his  title  clear  to  the  realms  of  immortality ! 

Thus  in  reading  rare  records  of  the  ancient  lowly  we 
cannot  be  too  thoughtful  or  too  careful  when  contemplat¬ 
ing  the  subject  of  immortality.  Though  old  in  life’s 
ephemeral  sjian,  the  human  race  is  still  in  the  dawn  of  its 
day ;  and  the  sun  has  yet  to  rise  higher  and  illume  many 
a  still  dark  chasm  of  our  belief.  The  great  aphorism  of 
Lucretius: 

“Proinde  licet  quotvis  viven  lo  condere  saecla: 

Mors  fflterna  tamen  nilo  minus  ilia  mane  bit,”  29 

though  it  has  been  parried  and  fought  in  darkness,  is  like 
that  of  Proudhon — “La  propriety  c’est  le  vol,’’  still  respect¬ 
able  ;  and  so  long  as  our  standard  cyclopedias  speak  of 
the  Rerum  Natura  of  Lucretius  as  the  “  greatest  of  didactic 
poems  ”  80  even  now,  when  the  grand  sun  of  man’s  morning 
of  life  has  lit  up  all  the  grottoes  but  that  of  fate  and  ren¬ 
dered  radiant  many  a  dark  belief,  just  so  long  is  it  wisest 
in  us  to  withdraw  cavil,  polemic  and  concern  from  a  post 
mortem  future  and  throw  our  whole  religion  into  practical 
doings  for  the  improvement  of  ourselves  upon  the  mortal 
stage.  But  most  especially  are  these  words  wise  counsel 
to  all  engaged  in  a  study  of  the  labor  problem. 

Such  is  this  wonderful  man,  says  the  theorist,  developed 
from  a  protoplasm  of  slimy  earth.  Then  up  to  this  stage 
he  was  lvithout  a  soul — an  animal.  He  further  developed 
to  the  stage  of  reason — mind.  Cunning  must  then  have 
secured  foi  him  the  boon  of  an  immortal  soul;  a  thing 

28  Plato,  Laws,  vii.  14.  “The  boy,  without  being  fitted  by  education,  be¬ 
comes  ctrafty  and  cunning  and  of  all  wild  beasts  the  most  insolent.”  Plato 
knew  the  fierce  nature  of  men  and  his  seventh  book  of  laws  is  a  thoughtful  code 
of  precepts  for  equalizing  habits  among  the  people,  and  punishing  with  means 
in  use  for  doing  so.  Plato  even  doubts  the  possibility  of  a  soul  In  such  wild 
creatures. 

29  Lucretius,  De  Rerum  Natura,  lib.  III.  1088-9. 

so  American  Cyclopaedia,  vol.  X.  p.  717,  ed.  of  1867. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  SURVIVAL. 


61 


which  most  people  agree  in  believing  that  the  reasonless 
animals  do  not  possess ! 

This  sort  of  speculation  may  appear  quite  innocent,  even 
popular;  for  such  is  the  freedom  of  thought  in  these  days 
that  men  delight  in  catching  at  the  gossamers  of  skepti¬ 
cism.  Where  the  danger  to  the  moral  sense  arises  on  this 
new  philosophy,  is  in  the  fact  that  the  revolution  is  not 
yet  realized.  The  world  is  still  in  its  competitive  stage. 
Man  is  still  combating  with  his  blind  egoism  in  the  strug¬ 
gle  for  existence,  It  is  not  altruism  or  mutual  love  and 
care  that  governs  his  career.  He  is  yet  fighting  against 
odds  for  survival ;  and  if  his  fitness  to  win  the  means  of 
life  prove  insufficient  he  does  not  survive,  but  perishes. 
Knowing  this,  he  is  too  ready  to  apply  his  reason  in  the 
direction  of  selfishly  actuated  cunning,  and  thus  wring  out 
a  living  recklessly.  One  thing  however,  has  always  barred 
him  from  the  exercise  of  dishonest  cunning.  It  is  con¬ 
science.  From  the  earliest  data  we  find  man  building 
upon  conscience  as  the  foundation  of  ethics.  As  we  have 
shown,  it  began  with  the  mother’s  virtue.  True,  it  was 
absurdly  imaginative,  figuring  the  rage  of  the  lar  famili- 
aris  in  case  that  weird  omnipotent  was  offended  by  an 
evil  deed  of  the  living.  Thus  to  commit  an  evil  deed 
used  to  cause  conscience  to  fill  the  imaginations  of  men 
with  horrid  appearances  rising  from  the  grave.  Goblins 
and  spectres  of  a  thousand  shapes.  Elfins  and  haunting 
terrors  appeared.  Conscience  was  thus  the  origin  of 
ghosts.  Conscience,  even  under  the  most  aristocratic  and 
tyrannical  religion,  held  base  actions  in  check.  Under  the 
prevailing  religions  of  the  world  conscience  at  this  day 
holds  evil  doing  in  check.  Ethics  is  now,  as  in  ancient 
times,  based  upon  conscience.  All  laws  are  largely  the 
outcome  of  it.  It  is  the  inner  counselor  of  outward 
actions  and  conscience  of  the  individual  must  never  give 
up  its  scepter  so  long  as  the  competitive,  egotistical  state 
dominates.  When  the  revolution  has  been  accomplished, 
when  society  shall  have  arranged  the  getting  of  the  means 
of  life  on  the  mutual  or  co-operative  plan,  when  it  shall  no 
longer  be  the  survival  of  the  fittest  but  the  survival  of  all, 
when  it  no  longer  becomes  necessary  to  fight  in  the  cruel, 
dreary  old  field  of  competition  and  the  struggle  for  exis¬ 
tence  ceases,  then  we  may  find  some  vague  grounds  foi 


62 


INDO-EUROPEAN  LABOR. 


imagining  our  pelves  no  longer  compelled  to  apply  the  check 
of  conscience;  since  wrong  doing  will  have  lost  its  incen¬ 
tive. 

But  now,  in  the  height  of  the  great  competitive  struggle 
when  working  people,  goaded  at  the  sight  of  their  own 
labor  products  falling  into  the  rapacious  hands  of  monop¬ 
olies,  are  again  on  the  rally  and  are  forming  the  most  com¬ 
pact  and  extensive  organizations  that  have  yet  existed ; 
just  at  this  moment  when  the  restraining  counsels  of  con¬ 
science  are  most  needed  to  check  and  withhold  what  else 
may  become  mobocracy,  with  results  more  furious  and 
sanguinary  than  the  deeds  of  Eunus  and  Cleon  or  of 
Spartacus  and  Crixius  which  we  are  going  to  relate,  and 
at  the  very  moment  the  moral  world  seems  riven  and 
quads  before  the  swelling  legions  of  aggrieved  labor  or¬ 
ganizing  in  the  struggle  for  existence  with  the  multifold 
weapons  of  an  advanced  enlightenment  at  their  command, 
what  do  we  see  ? 

A  new  thing  in  the  world.  A  stranger  in  form  of  a  phi¬ 
losophy  which  denies  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  A  codex 
which  seeks  its  precedents  back  of  religion  or  law,  beckon¬ 
ing  into  the  world  a  totally  new  scheme  of  dialectics.  In 
denying  the  old  belief  in  immortality  it  stamps  the  ancient 
conscience;81  for  what  further  use  has  ethics  or  morality 
for  conscience,  after  the  cherished  hope  of  earning  some 
longed-for  compensation  in  the  hereafter,  has  been  lost  ? 

The  only  conscience  left  to  man  would  be  that  based  on 
cunning!  This  invites  him  back  to  the  law  of  Lycurgus, 
which  made  stealing  a  virtue  but  being  caught,  a  crime. 
Conscience  the  foundation  rock  of  religion,  ancient  and 
modern,  is  ground  to  powder  by  this  new  giant  philoso¬ 
phy83  whose  arguments  seem  fortified  by  the  chemist,  the 
archaeologist,  the  comparative  philologist,  the  palaeonto¬ 
logist,  the  geologist  and  all  naturalists  now  devoting  them¬ 
selves  to  labors  which  are  to  prepare  for  a  study  of  etlmi- 

31  We  refer  mostly  to  that  moral  side  of  conscience  which  has  hitherto  so 
powerfully  actuated  and  restrained  men  by  force  of  belief  in  awards  and  pun¬ 
ishments. 

32  Arnobins  was  in  great  doubt  on  the  question  of  immortality.  Lucretius, 
author  of  the  celebrated  didactic  poem  on  nature,  believed  that  the  soul  perishes 
with  the  body.  Aristotle,  now  known  as  the  greatest  of  teachers,  could  never 
promise  anything  to  those  inquiring  of  him  on  the  problem  of  immortality- 
Uarwin  was  equally  silent  on  the  subject. 


RELIGION  A  HANDMAID  OF  CONSCIENCE.  63 


cal  science.  The  boldest  of  these  claim,  as  we  liave  shown, 
that  when  in  the  long  course  of  evolution,  man,  then  a 
brute  but  with  a  stature  more  erect  and  a  cranial  organism 
more  capacious  than  other  creatures  with  which  the  for¬ 
est  teemed,  began  to  experience  the  first  scintillations  of 
reason,  he  exercised  this  new  and  growing  gift  for  his  own 
advantage  and  to  secure  his  own  personal  survival ;  sacri¬ 
ficing  all  others  for  himself  through  prowess  and  strategem 
or  cunning.  Conscience  came  later  and  established  ethics 
which  has  developed  society,  law  and  order  and  kept  him 
somewhat  restrained.  Religion  is  the  handmaid  of  con¬ 
science  and  both  groped  together  up  to  the  present  time 
inseparable — neither  able  to  exist  without  the  other. 

Thus  the  new  philosophy  finds  man.  Religion  rests 
upon  assumed  immortality;  conscience  upon  religion.  The 
philosophy,  by  proving  that  belief  in  immortality  is  an  il¬ 
lusion,  that  the  soul  is  an  etherial  delusion,  that  with  the 
decease  of  body  comes  our  eternal  quietus,  proves  also 
that  there  is  no  religion.  The  great  bulwark  of  human¬ 
ity,  moral  law,  order,  hope,  restraint,  is  annihilated  at  one 
stroke.  Conscience,  resting  upon  religion,88  is  also  shat¬ 
tered  with  it,  and  man  goes  back  to  his  primeval  cunning 
and  brutal  instincts. 

Now,  in  coloring  our  description  of  the  revolution  in  a 
history  of  the  lowly,  let  us  select  an  average  workingman 
who  has  been  converted  to  the  new  philosophy  as  thous¬ 
ands  are — and  picture  the  effect  upon  him  as  an  agitator 
of  the  labor  question. 

Belief  in  the  doctrine  of  development  is  belief  either 
that  man  is  without  an  immortal  spirit  or  that  through 
his  own  genius  and  cunning  he  has  evolved  or  developed 
one  out  of  his  original  beasthood,  independently  of  an  al¬ 
mighty  power.  The  latter  is  not  even  pretended.  Con¬ 
sequently  immortality  is  denied.  The  belief  also  stamps 
out  religious  conscience  ;  leaving  in  him  the  conscious¬ 
ness  that,  as  there  is  no  responsibility  before  God — there 
being  none  except  insentient  law  which  regulates  the  uni¬ 
verse,  the  only  thing  to  consider  before  the  commission 

•ettonscience  resting  on  punishments  and  rewards  for  actions  in  the  phys¬ 
ical  woiM.  as  effects  of  causes,  is  not  here  taken  into  consideration. 


64 


INDO-EUROPEAN  LABOR . 


of  a  deed,  is  caution ,  for  safety's  sake;  first  that  the  act 
may  not  recoil  upon  himself,  and  second,  that  he  be  not 
caught  in  it  and  discovered.  These  are  affairs  of  cold 
reason.  Concience  with  its  compunctious  concomitants, 
is  ruled  out  of  the  affair;  and  rigid  experimental  know¬ 
ledge,  aptitude,  tact,  adaptiveness  take  its  place.  No  mat¬ 
ter  how  horrible  the  work  to  be  undertaken,  he  is  totally 
absolved  from  danger  of  punishment  if  cunning  enough 
to  elude  the  natural  and  the  statute  laws  and  succeed. 
With  cold  reason  and  in  cold  blood  he  fearlessly  under¬ 
takes  the  deed,  knowing  that  to  succeed  is  to  survive  his 
victim  and  be  happy. 

Lions,  dogs,  wolves,  hyenas,  vultures  are  constantly  do¬ 
ing  this  for  they  are  in  the  world  of  competition  and  have 
no  conscience  ;  and  he  is  not  a  whit  above  them  morally. 
Had  he  the  restraint  of  religious  conscience  in  the  same 
field  of  competition,  he  would  be  lifted  by  it  above  these 
brutes.  It  teaches  him  the  survival  of  the  fittest  and  in¬ 
flates  his  egotism  with  presumption  that  he  is  superior  to 
his  victim.  It  thus  unhinges  the  little  enlightenment 
which  mutual  co-operation  and  social  interaction  have  by 
great  agonies  of  effort  and  with  the  labors  of  conscience, 
sympathy  and  belief  in  immortality,  brought  into  the 
world.  Does  it  indeed,  threaten  our  civilization  ? 

One  will  say  this  shocking  description  may  apply  to  the 
workingman;  but  we  think  it  too  often  applies  practically 
to  the  most  educated.  It  especially  applies  to  them;  for 
such  revolting  immorality  seldom  penetrates  the  ranks  of 
laborers  who  from  remote  ages  of  the  past  have  been  re¬ 
ligiously  inclined  and  rather  prejudiced  in  favor  of  reli¬ 
gion.  No  tale  of  ancient  labo  •  can  ignore  its  religion. 

But  admitting  the  workingman  and  agitator  to  have 
become  a  convert  to  this  philosophy,  we  stil]  have  the  same 
revolting  consequences.  Such  consequences  are  now  con¬ 
stantly  transpiring.  The  present  cent  iry  is  producing 
some  reformers  who  are  believers  in  the  doctrine  of  de¬ 
velopment  and  are  scoffers  of  religion.  Few  of  them  ex¬ 
pect  to  live  beyond  their  grave.  Many  have  no  conscience 
regarding  a  future  punishment,  and  are  two  honei  it  in 
their  earnestness  when  they  conspire  against  great  wrongs 
and  argue  to  destroy  this  civilization.  Any  person 


BASIS  INTRODUCING  THE  LABOR  WARS.  65 


shielded  from  restraints  of  conscience  by  a  logic  which 
poses  on  the  dignity  and  grandeur  of  science,  may  guard 
himself  and  his  legions  from  detection  by  buckling  on  the 
life-preserver  of  cold  reason,  and  boxing  himself  into  some 
sequestered  laboratory  and  with  recondite  presumption, 
construct  infernal  machines.  He  may  sally  out  with  these 
and  if  there  come  conflicts  between  him  and  unjust  juris¬ 
prudence  or  even  tornadoes  of  destruction,  it  is  but  the 
recoil  of  a  philosophy  that  is  driving  men’s  conscience 
from  the  earth. 

This  lack  of  conscience  is  seen  in  the  brutal  treatment 
of  poor  slaves  by  Damophilus  to  which  we  devote  a  long 
chapter  of  this  book.  It  is  a  want  of  feeling  that  marks 
the  social  ages  of  the  past  and  rightly  does  not  belong  to 
modem  days. 

It  were  difficult  to  describe  the  terrible  depression  of 
moral  sentiments  to  which  a  man  naturally  sinks  under 
this  doctrine,  if  really  convinced  by  it  that  his  own  cun¬ 
ning,  aptitude  and  ambidexterity  are  legitimate  forces 
upon  which  he  must  depend  for  success  and  survival. 
Freed  from  the  fear  of  punishment  beyond  this  life,  he 
finds  that  the  conscience  within  his  breast  has  fled.  There 
is  no  overliving,  responsible  soul  and  consequently  no  re¬ 
sponsibility.  He  finds  himself  completely  absolved  from 
any  danger  except  that  of  failing  in  the  attempt.  He  de¬ 
pends  entirely  upon  adroitness  or  cunning.  Egotism 
lends  him  faith  in  this;  for  men  are  enterprising  and  glad 
to  undertake  innocent  adventures  and  in  this  philosophy 
every  act  is  innocent  which  does  not  recoil  upon  its  author. 
Thus  stimulated  and  shielded  he  goes  back  to  brigand¬ 
age  and  hardened  to  fratricide,  is  willing  to  do  devil  work 
of  whatever  manner  that  promises  to  gratify  greed,  whim 
or  caprice,  in  cajoling  the  transient  hour.  In  the  com¬ 
petitive  struggle  for  existence,  it  is  true,  every  one  has 
the  same  chances  but  the  survival  falls  to  him  who  pos¬ 
sesses  the  most  of  force,  tact  and  cunning.  Keason  has 
not  yet  changed  the  moral  aspects  of  tilings  from  this 
fighting,  competitive  state,  to  the  mutually  co-operative 
condition  wherein  all  harmoniously  agree  to  care  for  each 
other  as  the  best  means  of  caring  for  themselves.  This 
great  epoch  is  fast  coming.  Until  its  arrival  men  are  in 


66 


INDO-EUROPEAN  LABOR. 


the  competitive,  transitionary  state  whose  progress  de¬ 
pends  upon  every  possible  advantage  known  in  civiliza¬ 
tion;  and  one  of  the  most  powerful  agents  for  transform¬ 
ing  such  into  noble,  sympathetic  beings,  and  quickening 
them  into  the  sweet  emotions  of  love  and  care,  is  and  al¬ 
ways  has  been  conscience.  When  the  time  arrives  that 
reason  shall  have  become  wise,  shall  have  massed  its  way¬ 
ward  individualism  into  collective  solidarity,  pruned  off  its 
egotism,  dressed  itself  in  robes  of  charity  and  mutual  love, 
outgrown  its  benighted  gropings  and  adapted  itself  to  a 
seat  in  the  Christian  temple  of  equality,  then  there  will  be 
£ime  for  further  and  more  scientifically  investigating  the 
crowning  problem  of  immortality. 


SYWBOLS  OF  THE  ANCIENT  FARM. 


From  an  Inscription  at  Ravenna;  age  of  Caesar. 


CHAPTER  ELL 


LOST  MSS.  ARCHEOLOGY 

TRUE  HISTORY  OF  LABOR  FOUND  ONLY  IN 
INSCRIPTIONS  AND  MUTILATED  ANNALS. 

Prototypes  op  Industrial  Life  to  be  found  in  the  Aryan  and 
Semitic  Branches — Era  of  Slavery — Dawn  of  Manumission 
— Patriarchal  Form  too  advanced  a  Type  of  Government 
possible  to  primitive  Man — Religious  Superstition  fatal  to 
Independent  Labor — Labor,  Government  and  Religion  in¬ 
dissolubly  mixed — Concupiscence,  Acquisitiveness  and  Iras¬ 
cibility  a  Consequence  of  the  archaic  Bully  or  Boss,  with  un¬ 
limited  Powers — Right  of  the  ancient  Father  to  enslave, 
sell,  torture  or  kill  his  Children — Abundant  Proofs  quoted — 
Origin  of  the  greater  and  more  humane  Impulses — Sym¬ 
pathy  beyond  mere  Self-preservation,  the  Result  of  Ed¬ 
ucation — Education  originated  from  Discussion — Discussion 
the  Result  of  Grievances  against  the  Outcast  Work-people — 
Too  rapid  Increase  of  their  Numbers  notwithstanding  the 
Sufferings — Means  Organized  by  Owners  for  decimating  them 
by  Murder — Ample  proof — The  great  Amphyctyonic  League 
— Glimpses  of  a  once  sullen  Combination  of  the  Desperate 
Slaves — Incipient  Organization  of  the  Nobles. 

The  history  of  the  lowly  classes  of  ancient  society  must 
begin  with  manumissions,1  although  slave  labor  seems  the 
most  ancient.  There  have  come  to  us  very  few  traces  or 
accounts  of  the  slaves  of  high  antiquity.  Except  some 
relics  which  have  been  found  in  caves,  some  hieroglyphs 
carved  not  perhaps  by  themselves  but  by  masters  portray¬ 
ing  their  low  condition,’  we  have  no  landmarks  to  guide 

i  Granier  de  Cassagnac,  Hist,  d/%  douses  Ouvrikres,  Chap.  v. 

2The  typical  strikes  and  uprisings  of  slaves  do  not  come  to  ns  in  their  dreaded 
form  except  through  vague,  uncertain  evidence,  until  about  600  year*  befor* 
Christ.  See  chapters  on  Strikes  and  Uprisings ;  infra. 


68 


TREATMENT  OF  THE  POOR . 


our  groping  inquiry  through  the  long  night  of  time  which 
lasted  till  the  dawn  of  manumissions.  Unlike  the  African 
slaves  of  modern  times  who  were  the  property  of  a  class 
of  masters  not  of  their  own  race  or  kindred,  the  ancient 
slaves  were,  in  race  and  consanguinity,  the  equals  of  their 
masters ;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  causes  of 
their  emancipation  were  in  many  instances,  their  own 
resistance  to  slavery.  At  present  the  laboring  classes  of 
the  same  races  we  are  describing — the  Semitic  and  Indo- 
European — are  organizing  in  immense  numbers  and  with 
skill  to  resist  the  forces  which  modern  wage  servitude  in¬ 
flicts  ;  and  it  is  therefore  very  similar  to  the  great  struggle 
humanity  passed  through  in  ancient  times,  to  resist  the  op¬ 
pressive  system  under  which  nearly  all  were  born.  The 
difference  between  the  two  struggles  however,  lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  ancient  one  had  to  deal  with  the  lowest,  most 
debased  and  cruel  species  of  subjugation  which  the  ancient 
religion  stamped  into  its  tenets.  Both  these  great  strug¬ 
gles  are  of  long  duration.  When  the  first  was  partly  won 
Christianity  came  with  its  doctrine  of  equality  *  and 
brought  the  struggle  into  the  open  world.  It  went  hand  in 
hand  with  the  emancipation  movement  until  chattel  slavery 
and  its  vast,  aged  system  may  now  be  pronounced  extinct 
throughout  the  civilized  world.  The  struggle  has  contin¬ 
ued  ;  but  from  emancipating  chattel  slavery  it  has  shifted 
to  the  enfranchisement  of  competitive  labor. 

Notwithstanding  the  profound  learning  and  research  de¬ 
voted  by  M.  de  LaveleyeMn  proof  that  the  primitive  con¬ 
dition  of  mankind  was  of  patriarchal  form,  we  find  that  the 
great  slave  system  always  prevailed  among  the  Aryans  from 
whom  we  are  the  immediate  descendants ;  and  indeed  he 
sets  out 5  with  a  confession  at  least  that  the  early  Greeks 
and  Romans  never  had  any  institutions  of  the  communal  or 
patriarchal  nature.  Prof.  Denis  Eustel  de  Coulanges  makes 

«  Granier,  Hist,  des  Clasess  Ouvritres,  pp.  392-4 ;  Lareleye,  Primitive  Prop¬ 
erty.  Introduc.  to  1st  ed.,  pp.  xxvi.,  xxvii.  xxx..  xxxl,  Here  M.  de  Laveleye 
egain  admits  slavery  to  have  been  earlier  than  communism. 

i  Primitive  Property,  Eng.  trans.,  pp.  7-25,  chap.  ii. 

Idem  ,  p.  6.  “From  the  earliest  times  the  Greeks  and  Romans  recognized 
private  property  as  applied  to  the  soil  and  traces  of  ancient  tribal  community 
were  already  so  indistinct  as  not  to  be  discoverable  without  careful  study.”  AI. 
de  Laveleye  might  better  have  said  such  traces  are  not  discoverable  at  all;  and 
iudeed,  the  most  of  the  instances  he  cites  are  of  a  comparatively  recent  era,  the 
probable  development  of  resistance,  thousand  of  years  after  the  manumission  of 
slaves  had  set  in  as  a  result  of  their  strikes  and  uprisings,  of  which  we  get  claes. 


LAW  OF  ENTAIL  AND  ITS  DANGERS. 


69 


no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  Aryan  religion,  as  already 
described,  made  the  first  born  son,  by  the  law  of  entail,  the 
owner  of  his  own  children  who  thus  became  slaves.6  Ref 
erences  to  this  old  custom  are  very  numerous  in  the  an 
cient  writings.1  Under  Lycurgus8the  Spartans  tried  the 
system  of  communal  proprietorship  from  the  year  825  to 
371  B,  C.  Although  every  deference  was  paid  to  the  ten¬ 
ets  of  the  Pagan  religion  that  this  celebrated  code  of  laws 
established  by  the  great  lawgiver  should  not  interfere  with 
worship,  yet  worship  itself  being  interwoven  with  pro¬ 
perty  was  seriously  disturbed;  because  to  divide  amoDg 
the  people,  the  rabble,  the  profane,  that  which  fell  to  the 
god  who  sh  pt  under  the  sacred  hearth,  or  to  his  living 
son,  seemed  to  be  a  sacrilege  too  blasphemous  to  endure. 
The  scheme  fell  to  naught.  The  probable  fact  is,  that  the 
ancient  'paterfamilias ,  perceiving  himself  robbed  of  his  pa¬ 
ternity,  united  with  other  patricians  in  similar  trouble  and 
succeeded  in  working  the  overthrow  of  the  innovation. 
We  propose  to  establish  that  these  great  innovations,  like 
the  laws  of  Lycurgus  and  many  similar  attempts  at  reform, 
the  detailed  causes  of  whose  mighty  commotions  some¬ 
times  shook  Rome  and  Greece  like  the  eruption  of  a  vol¬ 
cano,  were  often  caused  by  the  multitudes  of  secret  trades 
and  other  social  organizations  existing  in  those  ancient 

davs 

•/ 

Historians  seldom  mention  them.  The  reason  for  this 
is  quite  clear.  This  disturbing  element  was  made  up  of  the 
outcasts  of  society.  How  did  it  come  about  that  there  were 
such  outcasts?  The  answer  to  this  involves  a  detour  of 
discovery  into  phenomana  of  evolution.  Of  a  family  of  say 
thirty  persons — there  exists  abundance  of  evidence  that 
there  were  ofttn  thirty  and  more  persons  born  to  one  patri¬ 
cian  or  lord  9 — there  is  but  a  single  owner  or  director,  the 
first-born  son.  The  other  children  and  servants  by  pur¬ 
chase  or  otherwise,  are  slaves.  It  was  a  crime  to  leave  the 
paternal  estate.  They  might  be  clubbed  to  death  for  dis- 

6  La  Cite  Antique;  Leviticus,  li.  4. 

■»  Plato,  Minos,  also  Servius  In  jEneid,  v.  84,  vl.  152. 

sRoscher,  Histoire  de  l’  ficonomie  Politique,  French  tr.  Paris,  p.  192.  “H  ? 
adopted  a  common  property;  education  in  common,  eating  in  common,  steal¬ 
ing  authorized,  commerce  interdicted,  precious  metals  proscribed,  land  divided 
equally  among  the  citizens  etc.” 

«  Granicr  do  L'assagnac,  Hist,  des  Classes  Ouvrilres,  p.  70 


70 


TREATMENT  OF  THE  POOR . 


satisfaction  with  their  lot  but  they  must  not  leave  or  desert 
it.  That  entailed  certain  death.  In  extraordinary  circum¬ 
stances  they  actually  did  leave  the  bondage  of  the  paternal 
estate  and  become  wanderers  or  nomads.  This  was  the 
probable  origin  of  the  second  estate.  We  mean  by  this 
the  freed  man.  Whether  they  obtained  their  freedom  by 
revolt  and  bloodshed,  by  running  away  from  their  masters, 
or  by  emancipation  as  per  agreement,  makes  little  difference. 
In  the  Asiatic  races  of  later  times  mentioned  by  Le  Play,1* 
they  seem  to  have  never  relinquished  their  allegiance  to 
some  lord,  patriarch  or  ruler.  By  a  tenacity  of  habit  to 
which  we  shall  refer,  the  very  most  ancient  customs  thus 
sometimes  come  down  to  us.  The  power  of  human  habit  is 
astonishing.  There  linger  to  this  day,  in  the  religion  wor¬ 
shiped  by  the  most  enlightened  of  mankind,  many  rites  and 
forms  common  in  remote  antiquity ;  for  although  the  tenets 
and  the  sentiment  are  no  longer  the  same,  the  old  rites 
befit  themselves  to  the  new  ideas. 

Desertion  from  this  bondage  is  known  to  have  been  a 
very  risky  affair ;  because  the  deserter  or  runaway  slave 
had  not  only  the  perils  of  the  act  of  desertion  to  run  but  he 
also  forfeited  his  right  and  title  to  the  small  hope  of  bliss 
accorded  him  by  the  gods  after  death.  Even  at  emanci¬ 
pation  the  right  of  worship  ceased,11  and  a  new  altar  had  to 
be  erected.  This  was  in  case  of  marriage  of  a  daughter 
when  no  one  was  injured  or  offended.  But  a  deserter  was 
treated  with  terrible  malignity  both  by  the  father  or  owner 
and  by  the  injured  deity  whose  relationship  in  pedigree 
or  consanguinity  he  severed,  desecrated,  disgraced  by  the 
blasphemous  act.  They  had  curious  opinions  on  death  ; 
and  religion  to  those  ancient  working  people,  was  a  part  of 
life.1*  The  fear  of  not  being  buried  with  the  right  of  sepul¬ 
ture  was  greater  than  the  fear  of  death  itself.13  Although 
comparatively  no  consequence  was  attached  to  a  slave,  yet 
the  slave  himself  being  by  lineage  and  byentailment  a  chat¬ 
tel,  evidently  had  some  right  to  sepulture.  Of  what  kind 

10  Le  Play,  Organization  of  Labor,  chap.  i.  §.9,  Eng.  trans.,  assures  ns  that 
among  the  nomads,  the  direct  descendants  of  one  father  generally  remained 
grouped  together.  They  lived  under  the  absolute  authority  of  the  mad  of  the 
family,  in  a  system  of  community.  Some  of  them  are  living  in  this  method  still. 

u  Fustel  de  Coulanges,  Cit£  Antique,  chap.  iii. 

« Idem.  chap.  i.  p.  12  “L 'opinion  premiere  dcs  antiques  g6n6rations  fnt 
qne  l’fttre  homain  vfvait  dans  le  tombeau  ;  que  1’  &me  ne  se  separait  pas  dn 
corps  «t  qa’  site  rsstalt  flx6«  4  cette  partie  du  sol  od  les  ossements  6talent  sn- 
tertfs.” 


CIVILIZATION  OUTGROWS  SLAVERY. 


n 


it  is  difficult  to  determine,14  because  historians  who  recorded 
military  deeds  and  legal  transactions  which  in  later  days 
were  considered  work  for  noblemen,  were  themselves  al¬ 
most  always  of  noble  blood  and  would  not  mention  so  mean 
a  thing  as  a  slave  who  performed  labor.  This  fact  accounts 
largely  for  the  scarcity  of  written  record  in  regard  to  labor 
in  ancient  times. 

Compelled  by  the  darkness  of  this  unwritten  age  of  slav¬ 
ery  which  must  have  lasted  infinitely  longer  than  seven 
thousand  years  of  whose  events  we  catch  an  occasional 
glimpse,  we  first  find  the  great  philosopher  Aristotle  ac¬ 
knowledging,16  in  his  startling  prediction  that  “  slave  labor 
may  become  obsolete.”  So  again  Rodbertus  of  our  own 
times,  looking  at  and  judging  from  the  organized  resistance 
of  laboring  men,  predicts  that  society  will  outgrow  wages  or 
competitive  slavery.16  Here  are  two  seemingly  parallel 
cases  ;  the  one  representing  a  condition  of  aflairs  350  years 
before  Christ,  the  other  taken  from  actual  conditions  before 
our  own  eyes,  in  both  cases,  given  against  the  stubborn  will 
of  the  ruling  wealthy  by  two  of  the  profoundest  and  most 
daringly  honest  philosophers  the  world  has  produced.  At 
the  time  Rodbertus  von  Jagetzow  made  this  startling  pre¬ 
diction,  Germany  under  Bismarck,  was  stifling  every  ef¬ 
fort  of  press,  legislation,  trade-unions  and  socialists,  to  give 
the  dreaded  fact  to  the  world.  The  freedmen  at  the  time 
of  Aristotle  were  forming  an  innumerable  phalanx  of  com¬ 
bined  strength.  It  is  not  hard  for  students  of  sociology  to 
understand  why  in  ancient  times  no  mention  was  made  by 
historians  of  the  wonderful  organizations  which  then  existed. 
But  for  laws  necessarily  recorded  for  the  use  of  government 
and  for  the  habit  which  labor  unions  of  those  times  enter¬ 
tained,  compulsorily  perhaps,  of  inscribing  their  name,  fes¬ 
tivities,  the  tutelary  saint  they  worshiped  and  the  handi¬ 
craft  they  belonged  to,  upon  slabs  of  stone,  there  would  be 
no  means  of  knowing  or  even  conjecturing  the  history  of 
a  transition  period  which  launched  mankind,  after  long  cen¬ 
turies  of  struggle,  out  of  a  passive  submission  to  abject  ser- 

13  Idem,  Chap.  i.  Antiques  Croyances. 

14 Later  we  find  cremation;  but  only  the  poor  who  possessed  no  ground 
burned  their  dead.  These  were  the  outcasts  supposed  to  nave  no  souls. 

is  Aristotle,  Politics,  i.  4.  u>  Rodbertus,  Normal  Arbeitstag  ;  Ely,  Hist. 

French  and  German  Socialisms,  pp.  176-7. 


n 


TREATMENT  OF  THE  POOR. 


vitude  into  the  true  competitive  system.  We  shall  farther 
on  have  more  to  say  in  detail  of  the  hatred  and  contempt 
which  the  ancient  slave  masters  held  toward  their  poor 
working  chattels. 

There  was  a  taint  upon  labor.  So  there  is  now.  Thus 
far  then,  there  is  no  progress.  We  shall  attempt  to  ana¬ 
lyze  the  original  cause  of  this  taint  upon  labor  and  prove 
that  the  progress  of  to-day  consists  in  its  diminution, 

Admitting  the  theory  of  development  we  go  back  to  man 
at  the  dawn  of  reason,  when  he  was  still  a  beast.  We  even 
imagine  a  group,  such  as  Professor  Oswald  Heer  has  pic¬ 
tured  in  the  frontispiece  of  his  masterly  scientific  work  on 
the  fossils  of  Switzerland.17  Prowling  around  this  group  ot 
naked  human  forms — some  upon  trees,  others  crawling, 
others  walking  plantigrade,  or  gorilla-like — we  see  wild 
animals,  birds  and  reptiles,  all  in  search  of  food.  Just  as 
the  steer  after  a  desperate  encounter  with  its  rival  comes 
out  the  victor  and  ever  holds  the  mastery  over  the  rest  of 
a  herd,  so  the  most  powerful  and  ferocious  of  this  group  of 
primeval  men  wins  with  his  club,  his  fingers,  or  fists  the 
mastery  over  the  rest.  These  are  first  impulses.  They  are 
entirely  animal  in  character.  Wild  geese  and  ducks  seek 
in  conflict  the  means  of  knowing  which  of  their  flock  shall 
be  leader  in  their  flight;  and  him  of  the  most  magnetic  or 
muscular  or  intellectual  powers  they  follow.  The  purely 
animal,  then,  is  the  form  which  primitive,  animal  man  as¬ 
sumes.  This  strong  master  of  the  group  is  the  prototype  of 
the  patrician  and  inheritor  of  the  estate  as  thousands  of 
years  afterwards  we  find  him  lord  of  the  manor  with  his 
slaves  about  him.  It  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  im¬ 
mediately  at  the  dawn  of  reason,  this  wild  animal  actually 
assumed  one  of  the  highest  types  of  civilization.  The  com¬ 
munistic  or  even  the  patriarchal  is  one  of  the  highest  forms 
which  human  beings  have  attempted.  They  have,  it  is  true, 
been  attempted  but  mostly  to  prove  failures;  simply  be¬ 
cause  they  were  of  a  type  even  in  their  crudest  state,  too 
far  progressed  for  others  to  appreciate  and  apply.  The 
master  or  as  we  may  better  characterize  him,  the  bully  has 
always  been  too  jealous.  That  Abraham  and  Moses  tried 
&  very  low  form  of  it,  and  isolated  themselves  so  as  not  to 

wDr.  Oswald  Hecr,  UrwcU  dor  SchwcU, 


EVIDENCE  OF  INSCRIPTIONS. 


n 


interfere  with  others,  is  true.  But  it  is  too  well  known  that 
the  Hebrews  were  not  appreciated  in  their  good  work. 
Their  very  attempt  to  institute  the  patriarchal  system  even 
in  its  imperfect,  half  competitive  form,  brought  against  them 
the  jealousy  of  the  world  of  heathendom.  It  was  an  intol¬ 
erable  innovation  upon  the  more  ancient,  aristocratic,  brutal 
system  of  masters  and  slaves.  And  it  was  no  mere  indi¬ 
vidual,  but  this  gigantic  system  which  massed  its  powers  to 
drive  the  presump tious  Hebrews  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 

The  mere  animal  form  of  government  must  have  come 
first.  This  reasoning,  says  the  law  of  evolution,  must  have 
born  very  brutal  forms.  Surely  enough,  so  we  find  it  at  the 
dawn  of  history  and  at  the  highest  discernible  antiquity  not 
only  in  Greece  and  Rome  but  in  Egypt.  It  was  the  slave 
system  under  which  the  Egyptian  monuments  were  built; 
and  no  thinking  person  can  doubt  that  thousands  of  years  of 
this  slavery  must  have  elapsed  before  the  Egyptians  arrived 
at  the  art  of  architecture  in  which  recorded  history  finds 
them.  Advancing  reason  had  already  been  of  millennial  date 
ere  those  people  could  have  known  how  to  carve  their  hiero¬ 
glyphs  with  nice  precision  upon  the  monuments.  Again, 
we  fail  to  see  that  these  inscriptions  mention  any  mode  of 
a  more  ancient  communal  or  patriarchal  government. 
The  simplest  form  of  governing  the  primeval  race  must 
have  been  the  one  adopted ;  and  the  simplest  was  the  one 
common  among  the  animals  of  to-day.  There  was  at  the 
head  of  every  group,  or  tribe,  or  family,  a  master ;  and  him 
the  rest  obeyed,  afterwards  adored. 

It  next  seems  natural  that  surrounded  by  wild  and  fierce 
creatures  of  the  waters,  glades  and  forests,  the  first  rea¬ 
sonable  thing  to  protect  this  master  would  be  to  select  some 
place  of  security — some  rock  or  cave  or  height,  whence  he 
might  go  or  send  forth  into  the  forests,  the  swamps  and 
shores  in  search  of  fruit,  roots,  shellfish  and  game.  An¬ 
other  thing;  it  is  natural  for  man  to  settle  permanently 
somewhere.  This  is  peculiarly  the  case  with  the  Aryan 
races.  It  is  the  form  of  life  almost  universally  adopted  by 
the  Indo  Europeans.  They  select  a  seat  and  conquer  and 
subjugate  in  all  directions.  This  also  corresponds  with 
our  proposition  that  the  first  idea  was  to  obtain  a  home. 
With  the  growth  of  experience  iu  the  application  of  reason 
eame  egoism  which  it  is  said  the  brute  does  not  often  man- 


74 


TREATMENT  OF  THE  POOR. 


ifest.  Now  with  animal  prowess,  a  little  reason  and  a  large 
egoism,  we  have  what  the  present  labor  movement  calls  a 
“1)088.”  He  is  endowed  with  the  three  great  attributes 
which  our  modern  authorities  on  moral  philosophy  denom¬ 
inate  irascibility  and  concupiscence. 

Given  the  right  of  proprietorship  wrung  through  supe¬ 
riority  in  physical  power  from  his  tribe  and  his  children, 
and  he  unhesitatingly  uses  them  as  slaves.  This  the  true 
beast  cannot  do,  since  it  requires  reason.  The  first  impulse, 
that  of  cupidity,  makes  him  a  tyrant  and  the  second,  that  of 
irascibility,  fills  him  with  cruel  ferocity,  accounting  for  the 
well  known  fact  that  the  ancient  slave-holder  could  and  often 
did  kill  his  own  children.18  The  first  impulse,  that  of  concu¬ 
piscence  and  acquisitiveness  combined  into  one,  makes  him 
desirous  to  enjoy  and  accumulate.  So  his  children  are  nu¬ 
merous.  These  two  nearly  allied  sources  of  human  desire  or 
greed  filled  him  with  a  rivalry  to  accumulate  and  often  to  se¬ 
quester  the  stores  which  the  toil  of  his  slaves  produced. 

A  third  impulse,  that  of  sympathy,  being  yet  mostly  want¬ 
ing,  man  reasonably  was  thus  filled  with  pomp  and  greed. 
These  whetted  his  yet  unbridled  passions,  making  him 
ambitious  to  embellish  his  estate,  caused  the  land  to  be  fruit¬ 
ful,  inspired  him  to  build  better  houses,  select  and  multiply 
his  concubines  and  otherwise  adorn  the  paternity.  But  the 
original  parent-aristocrat  or  paterfamilias  never  until  much 
later,  desisted  from  the  enforcement  of  absolute  virtue  of 
the  parent-aristocrat  mother  or  mater familias. 

Sympathy,  it  would  seem  came  to  him  but  tardily.  Sym¬ 
pathy  was  inspired  later; — brought  into  the  world  through 
the  cult  of  the  organizations  of  freedmen,  after  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  the  era  of  manumissions.  Socrates  and  Aristotle 
recognized  their  powerful  school  of  fraternal  coherence  and 
mutual  love  which  it  seems  almost  certain  culminated  in  the 
wonderful  institution  known  as  Chistianity,  destroying  the 
old  Paganism  or,  at  least,  laying  the  foundation  for  its  final 
eradication  from  the  world. 

This  picture  presents  a  poor  outlook  for  the  slaves,  who 
wTere  obliged  to  perform  the  master’s  drudgery.  They  how¬ 
ever,  always  had  two  advantages :  being  to  the  family  born, 

is  Terentins,  Heauton  Timorumenos,  Act  III.  5 ;  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus, 
Antiquitates  Roviance,  lib.  II.  cap.  xxvi. ;  Codex  Juttiniani,  lib.  VII.  tit.  xlvli. 
PandecUE,  ( Digest J,  lib.  XXVIII.  leg.  xi. 


THE  IGNOMINIOUS  CREMATION. 


75 


they  owned  a  meagre  right  to  some  kind  of  burial;  whereas 
it  is  known  that  later,  the  freed  man  could  only  expect  cre¬ 
mation.  To  have  the  remains  refused  the  noble  rite  of  bur¬ 
ial  was  a  disgrace.  It  was  a  virtual  acknowledgement 
that  the  person  had  no  soul.  Malefactors,  runaways  or  de¬ 
serters  and  freedmen  so  lowly  as  to  be  without  protection, 
in  other  words  all  whom  God  spurned  to  recognize  as  hav¬ 
ing  an  immortal  life,  were  burned  or  cast  out  to  rot  without 
honors.19  The  other  advantage  was  that  their  owners  were 
their  supporters  which  freed  slaves  from  the  responsibilities 
of  the  struggle  for  bread.  Still  the  whole  picture  presents 
a  poor  outlook  for  the  slaves  who  were  obliged  to  perform 
his  drudgery.  But  as  if  they  might  be  inclined  to  desert 
him  the  religious  belief  was  so  riveted  upon  their  benighted 
minds  that  for  thousands  of  years  they  did  not  doubt  that 
the  punishment  for  desertion  would  be  a  species  of  damna¬ 
tion.  The  slaves  were  taught  that  the  most  hallowed  of  all 
places  was  the  central  focus  or  alter  of  worship  of  the  manes 
of  their  master.  The  holy  and  awful  funeral  repast  had  al¬ 
ways  to  be  partaken  upon  the  same  spot  wrhere  the  family 
ancestors  lay.  Thus  for  generations  families  worshiped  each 
other  at  the  same  tomb.20  We  have  already  quoted  from 
Dr.  Fustel  that  the  dread  of  being  deprived  of  sepulture 
was  greater  than  the  fear  of  death  itself.  So  fearful  were 
the  ancients,  even  the  ancient  laborers,  of  arousing  the  ire 
of  their  tutelary  deities  that  they  worshiped  them  by  sacri¬ 
fices.  They  even  fed21  these  disengaged  souls22  and  period¬ 
ically  furnished  them  with  wine,  milk,  fruit,  honey  and  other 
table  delicacies  which  in  life  they  had  been  known  to  pre¬ 
fer.  These  strange  beliefs  which  were  by  no  means  con¬ 
fined  to  the  Indo-European,  but  as  Fustel  de  Coulanges  has 
made  clear,  embraced  the  entire  Aryan  family,28  were  the 

19 Cicero,  De  Legibus ,  2,  23,  “Hominem  mortuum,  inquit  lex  XII., 

(meaning  the  Twelve  Tables, )  in  Urbe  ne  sepelito  neve  urito . Quid?  qui 

post  XIl.  in  Urbe  sepulti,  sunt  clari  viri.” 

20  Euripides.  Trojans,  381. 

21  Virgil,  jtEneid,  III.  300:  Euripides,  Iphigenia,  476,  “Behold,  I  pout 
upon  the  earth  of  the  tomb  milk,  honey  and  wine ;  for  it  is  with  these  that  we 
revivify  the  dead;”  Cf.  also,  Ovid,  Fastus,  II.  540. 

22  Critically,  this  expression  is  incorrect ;  for  the  ancients  believed  that  the 
soul  was  never  disengaged,  but  remained  buried  with  the  body  in  bliss.  Con¬ 
sult  Fustel  de  Coulanges,  Citi  Antique,  liv.  I.  chap.  ,iv. 

23  In  substance  Dr.  Fustel,  Idem.  p.  26  says :  Ces  croyances  ne  sont  pas 
asurement  empruntGes  ni  par  les  Grecs  des  Dindous  ni  paries  Hindous  dca 
Grecs ;  mais  elles  appartenaient  4  toutes  les  leux  races,  de  loin  recul6es  et  du 
milieu  de  1’  Asie. 


w 


TREATMENT  OF  THE  POOR 


prevailing  ones  and  formed  the  basis  of  the  great  Pagan  re¬ 
ligion.  The  superstition  worked  so  powerfully  upon  the 
benighted  conscience  of  slaves  that  however  severe  their  lot, 
they  required,  a  higher  scale  of  enlightenment  than  could  be 
had  in  these  low  forms  of  slavery  before  they  could  see  their 
way  clear  to  revolt.  This,  however  came  in  the  course  of 
time.  There  is  no  doubt  that  discussion  among  the  numer¬ 
ous  organizations  of  freedmen  did  much  toward  bringing 
this  about.  The  increasing  number  of  slaves  also  gave  them 
opportunity  to  meet  and  interchange  opinions.  In  the  deep 
gloom  of  abject  slavery  men  seldom  revolt.  Revolt  is  es¬ 
pecially  rare  where  there  is  no  contact  with  public  opinion 
adverse  to  it.  It  is  not  probable,  therefore,  that  the  slaves, 
however  bad  their  treatment,  found  themselves  in  a  condi¬ 
tion  enough  advanced  in  the  scale  of  manhood  to  organize 
revolt  until  thousands  of  years  of  their  abject  servitude  had 
elapsed.  But  it  appears  certain  that  revolts  had  been  going 
on  for  a  long  time  before  wre  catch  the  earliest  clues  to 
their  history. 

When  language  had  become  perfected  and  means  of 
mutual  comprehension  had  come  into  their  grasp,  so  that 
an  intelligent  interchange  of  each  others  feelings  was  had, 
and  it  became  easy  to  express  their  grievances  and  suffer¬ 
ings  one  with  another,  they  began  to  revolt.  If  a  lord  or 
capitalist  in  a  paroxysm  of  unbridled  rage,  ordered  one  slave 
for  a  trivial  offense  to  be  strangled  by  the  others,34  they 
were  compelled  to  be  the  executioners  of  their  comrade. 
If  his  majesty  raised  his  hand  and  dashed  out  the  brains  of 
his  own  child,  the  other  children,26  though  by  no  means 
so  keenly  sensitive  to  the  horror  as  we  of  our  own  time, 
would  feel  a  common  sympathy  and  perhaps  lay  up  the  in¬ 
fanticide  for  a  futuie  day  of  vengeance.  When  the  right  of 
sepulture  was  taken  from  them  and  they  found  that  even 
the  consolation  of  religion  was  gone,  they  went  desperate 
and  reckless  over  the  imagined  withdrawal,  by  the  God 
they  worshiped,  of  his  blessing.  In  this  state  of  mind  they 

*4  See  story  of  Damophilos  In  chapter  viii.,  on  the  revolt  of  Ennus. 

as  We  have,  in  the  ancient  records,  many  allusions  to  the  murder  of  chil¬ 
dren  by  the  lords  of  the  estate.  See  Dionyssius  of  Halicarnassus,  Archiologi a 
Rhomana,  lib.  II.  cap.  xxvi.  'O  Si  Ttav  'Pco/uaicoi'  vopoJeTqi  diroaav,  eirnuv,  <eS~ 
toKeu  e£ov<riav  irarpi  icaO’  vtou,  Ka'i  napa  navra  r ov  tov  fiiov  \povov , ...»  edvre  anon- 

TtVi'vi'ai  npoaipriTai'  Also  Code  of  Justinian,  lib.  VIII.  tit  xlvii.  leg.  X.,  where 
this  right  is  mentioned  as  having  once  existed  ;  “Jug  (patrbus)  vit»  in  liberot 
necisque  potegtas  olim  erat  permissa.” 


THE  FIRST  MERCENARY  SOLDIERS. 


77 


must  have  frequently  plotted  together  and  concocted  insur- 
rections.28  They  however,  did  not  co-operate  with  each 
other  for  the  accumulation  of  wealth.  This  is  a  phenome¬ 
non  of  which  we  shall  hereafter  speak  more  lengthily.  But 
the  principle  cause  of  the  rebellions  which  in  course  of  time 
became  very  common,  was  their  increase  among  themselves. 
It  must  not  be  supposed  because  the  master  who  owned  all 
at  their  expense  and  degradation,  that  he  could  and  did  live 
in  unbridled  libertinism  among  his  human  chattels,  who  by 
reason  of  the  taint  on  labor  never  had  recognized  family  al¬ 
liances  among  each  other.  However  stringent  the  rules  of 
tyrants  over  the  oppressed  they  were  never  known  to  en¬ 
tirely  prevail  over  nature.  What  the  form  of  alliance  be¬ 
tween  the  sexes  of  the  very  ancient  sla  ves  may  have  been 
is  not  fully  known  ; — whether  free  of  formality  or  by  the 
ligature  of  accorded  right.27  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  fact  re¬ 
mains  that  the  human  race  was  by  no  means  dependent  for 
its  increase  upon  the  heads  of  optimate  families.  As  was 
the  case  with  the  negro  slaves  in  the  Southern  States  of  the 
American  Republic,  so  in  Greece  and  Italy  the  slaves  mul¬ 
tiplied  among  themselves.  In  course  of  time  they  grew 
very  numerous.  Of  course,  as  their  number  increased  they 
outgrew  the  actual  requirements  of  the  landed  estate  to 
which  they  were  enfeoffed.  Then  they  were  sold  to  other 
estates  or  killed.28  Later  when  wars  occurred  they  become 
mercenaries,29  in  earlier  times,  under  their  owners,  as  im¬ 
pedimenta  of  the  army ;  not  as  combatants,  because  they 
were  of  too  ignoble  birth  to  engage  in  the  aristocratic  vo¬ 
cation  of  war.  Still  later  we  find  them  assuming  the  dig¬ 
nity  of  combatants.  Of  this  latter  period  we  find  clearer 
traces,  and  shall  show  that  these  mercenaries  were  none 
other  than  the  supernumeraries  from  the  estates,  who  had 
run  away  to  take  into  their  own  hands  the  struggle  for  ex- 

26  undeniable  evidence  of  thi9  is  fonnd  in  the  great  servile  wars  of  Sicily, 
where  Demeter  or  Ceres,  goddess  of  that  region  was  complained  of  by  the  slaves 
as  having  deserted  them.  See  Bucher,  Aufstdnde  der  unfreien  Arbeiler,  S.  53 
and  54,  Siefert,  Sicilischc  Sklavenkriege,  S.  17-18 

2"  See  chapters  xiii.  to  xx.  on  the  Collegia  and  Sodalicia  of  Italy  and  the 
Eranoi  and  Thiasoi  of  the  Greek-speaking  labor  unions,  which  produce  plenty  of 
proof  that  from  before  11.  C.  600,  the  freedmen  had  their  laws  of  marriage. 
The  more  ancient  slavery  is  obscure  in  records  of  the  social  habits  of  the  poor. 

28  Granier  de  Cassagnac,  Hist,  des  Classes  Ouvri'eres,  p.  61. 

2tGrote,  History  of  Greece, — Dionysius  the  Eider.  Dionysius,  Tyrant  of  Syra¬ 
cuse  employed  mercenaries,  and  Dion’s  conquest  of  Syracuse  against  Dionysius 
the  Younger  was  begun  with  mercenary  troops  in  B.  0.  359. 


78 


TREATMENT  OF  THE  POOR. 


istence.  It  is  very  easy  to  prove  that  there  were  organiza 
tions  or  unions  of  mercenaries  who  sold  their  services  to 
princes  and  their  generals,  undertaking  to  accomplish  cer¬ 
tain  military  feats  for  a  recompense. 

But  we  are  still  treating  of  the  workingman  as  a  slave. 
The  father  of  the  family  was  one  individual.  But  the  family 
itself  often  consisted  of  fifty.  Now  as  the  only  one  of  all 
these  eligible  to  the  blooded  dignity  of  nobility  was  the 
father,  what  became  of  the  rest?80  They  were  not  only 
slaves  but  they  formed,  as  it  were,  another  race.  They 
were  the  plebeians,  the  proletariat ;  “  hewers  of  wood  and 
drawers  of  water.”  It  was  impossible  under  the  extremes 
of  this  social  divergence,  for  any  communication  or  sympa¬ 
thy  to  be  recognized  between  them.  Even  though  the 
master  was  the  father  and  the  child  legitimate  though  a 
Blave,  by  the  deadly  inheritance  of  his  bondage  riveted  upon 
him  through  immemorial  usage,  he  dared  not  look  up  into 
his  parent’s  face  with  the  sweet,  tender  love  of  our  modern 
consanguinity  !  It  was  a  sacrilege.  Equality  was  impossi¬ 
ble.  The  number  therefore,  of  the  slave  race  compared 
with  the  noble,  was  as  fifty  to  one.  Even  as  late  as  the 
beginning  of  that  powerful  reform  known  as  Christianity 
which  may  be  characterized  as  an  emancipation  proclama¬ 
tion,  the  slave  system  was  in  full  operation  and  the  num¬ 
ber  of  slaves  enormous. 

It  is  through  that  long  night  of  slavery  for  the  working 
people,  that  humanity  received  its  almost  indelible  stamp 
of  reproach  and  contempt  which  lingers  to-day  in  the 
“  taint  ”  of  labor.  During  the  struggle  of  strikes  and  up¬ 
risings  that  set  in  after  the  slaves  became  numerous  and 
colonies  of  them,  either  as  marauders  or  adventurers  ap¬ 
peared,  the  slave  race  developed  many  men  and  women  of 
extraordinary  genius  and  ability.  We  shall  present  an 
elaborate  history  of  these  as  landmarks  in  our  biography  of 
the  lowly  while  groping  through  the  barren  void  which 
the  historians  and  the  literary  wreckers  have  left  us,  torn  in 
fragments  or  quite  unchronicled  in  their  short  sighted  con¬ 
tempt  and  eagerness  to  set  forth  only  exploits  which  the 
ambition  of  their  noble  masters  inspired.  So  poor  was  the 
food  doled  out  by  the  masters  to  their  slaves  that  they  may 

*o  The  Materfamilias  or  married  mother  kept  herself  in  severe  seclusion  so 
41  to  be  above  suspicion . 


branded  and  fed  HUSKS  AND  PODS.  79 


be  said  to  have  been  fed  like  animals  from  the  crib.  Horace, 
Herodotus,  Lucanus,  Livy,  Pliny  and  many  others  give  tes¬ 
timony  of  the  wretched  food  these  poor  slaves  received  in 
Greece,  Egypt  and  Rome.  Peas,81  nuts,  roots,  pods, 
skimmed  milk,  very  poor  bread,  and  none  made  of  white 
wheat  flour.92  Great  suffering  from  want  is  mentioned  in 
Pliny’s  Natural  History,  among  the  slaves  of  Italy.  An  epi¬ 
demic  like  the  black  death  twice  broke  out  among  them. 
He  also  states  that  this  disease  did  not  attack  the  noble  or 
well-to  do  people.**  These  great  sufferings  and  privations 
caused  the  death  rate  to  be  so  high  as  to  decimate  the 
ranks  of  the  slaves  thus  reducing  the  danger  always  feared 
by  the  masters,  of  revolt  and  of  plottings  for  insurrection. 
Aside  from  the  curse  which  their  lowly  condition  stamped 
upon  the  slaves,  they  were  treated  with  ignominy  and  gen¬ 
erally  marked  with  the  stichun 84  on  their  faces.  The  word 
8tigma  among  the  Greeks  was  full  of  reproach,  not  only 
because  the  scars  were  on  the  faces  and  bodies  of  these  poor 
white  men  and  women88  doomed  to  perpetual  servitude, 
but  because  it  was  also  indelibly  stamped  upon  their  social 
life.  Granier  who  produced  a  gem  in  his  great  work  **  for 
which  the  subsequent  labor  movement  acknowledges  its  in¬ 
debtedness,  says  of  this  ancient  slavery :  “  This  curse  of 
blood  is  implacable.  Yentidius  Bassus  was  so  fortunate  as 
to  become  a  consul.  They  said  to  him,  you  were  a  boot- 
black.  Galerius,  Diocletian,  Probus,  Pertinax,  Vitellius, 
even  Augustus  had  the  good  fortune  to  become  emperors. 
They  said  to  Galerius:  You  were  a  swineherd;  to  Diocle¬ 
tian  :  You  were  a  slave;  to  Probus:  Your  father  was  a 
gardener;  to  Pertinax:  Your  father  was  a  freedman  ;  to 
Vitellius:  Your  father  was  a  cobbler;  and  they  went  so 


»  Horace,  Ad  Pisonem,  v.  249. 

*>  Homer,  Odessey,  lib.  VIII.  c.  v.  221,  222.  The  earth-born  multitudes  : 


“T !av  5’  akkdiv  ifjii  <f>gpu  vo\v  npocfrepearepov  etvai, 

’OaaoL  vvv  flporoi  eicrtp  «wi  \6ovl  airor  eSorre?.” 

**  Pliny,  Natural  History,  XXVI.  c.  iii.  “Non  fuerat  haec  lues  apud  ma* 
Joies  patresque  nostros.” 

s4  See  Comcedioe  of  Plautus :  Stichus,  “ The  marked  Slave also  Plutarch.. 
NLcias,  29 ;  Xenophon,  De  Vectigal.,  c.  iv  ;  Diod  XXXIV.  Fragment,  Dindori 

35  Homer,  Iliad,  I.  233  “The  earth-born  multitude.” 

36  Granier  de  Cassagnac,  Hist,  des  Classes  Ouvri'eres ;  especially  in  chap.  v. 
Ill;  McCullaeh,  Industrial  History  of  Free  Nations; — The  Greeks .  This  scholar 
quotes  from  Hesiod’s  *Epy a  <ai  'Hp-epai,  v.  186.,  where  tho  great  poet  appeals 
to  the  lords  for  amelioration  of  the  people’s  sufferings :  “Hesiod  lived  for  many 
years  in  Boetia  where  the  oppression  and  exclusiveness  of  the  dominant  classes 
was  as  unrelenting  as  in  Lacedeemon.”  Greek  Industries,  pp.  6-7. 


80 


TREATMENT  OF  THE  POOR . 


far  as  to  write  on  the  marble  of  the  statue  of  Augustus,  in 
the  lifetime  of  this  master  of  the  world:  Your  grandfather 
was  a  merchant,  and  your  father  a  usurer.”  The  same  keen 
observer  in  his  investigation  of  these  ancient  phenomena  of 
slavery,  makes  a  very  important  suggestion,  the  result,  he 
says,  of  his  own  personal  reading  of  the  Iliad  of  Homer  : 
that  as  there  is  in  the  whole  of  that  celebrated  poem,  not 
one  allusion  to  freedmen,  or  to  the  subject  of  emancipation; 
whereas  in  the  Odyssey  there  appear  many  allusions  thereto 
it  is  therefore,  following  the  line  of  reason  adopted  by  com¬ 
parative  philologists  and  historiographers  in  search  of  facts 
in  ethnography,  very  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  Iliad 
is  the  oldest,  and  that  the  Odyssey  came  afterwards.*’ 
Here  is  a  suggestion  worth  much  to  anthropologists  in  gen¬ 
eral  ;  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  it  may  be  cleared  so  as  to  become 
useful  to  the  study  of  Sociology.  We  hear  of  no  great  spasm 
like  that  of  the  war  of  the  rebellion  of  our  own  day,  which 
produced  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves.  If  nothing  of 
that  kind  occurred  between  the  composition  of  those  two 
poems,  so  ancient  and  obscure,  then  it  is  reasonable  to 
imagine  that  the  emancipation  was  gradual;  and  if  gradual, 
an  unlimited  time  must  have  elapsed — perhaps  thousands 
of  years — between  their  composition.  This  alone  seems 
capable  of  solving  the  incongruity.  But  it  tends  forcibly  to 
show  the  astonishing  age  of  slavery  which  may  well  be 
called  the  long  night  of  suffering  of  our  progenitors.  Cer¬ 
tain  it  is,  however  that  the  Iliad  treats  of  the  extremes; 
the  lords  upon  the  one  hand  and  on  the  other  the  slaves. 
The  want  of  an  intermediary  class  shows  its  high  an¬ 
tiquity. 

At  anv  rate,  all  these  researches  accumulate  evidence 
showing  the  absurdity  of  a  communistic  or  nomadic  form 
of  society  having  been  possible  among  the  Indo-Europeans 
from  whom  we  are  descended  unless  that  tendency  su¬ 
pervened  upon  the  ancient  system  of  land  tenure  in  sub¬ 
sequent  times.  There  crops  out  one  curious  association 
in  very  ancient  history  which,  to  the  reader  wishing  to 
gratify  his  military  or  ecclesiastical  taste  is  totally  unac¬ 
countable  ;  but  which  appears  quite  plain  to  those  who 
study  history  to  enjoy  glimpses  of  the  social  life  of  the 
past.  We  refer  to  the  aristocratic  Amphictyonic  Council 

in  Granler  de  Casaagnac,  Hut.  da  Clouet  OuvrQrtt,  chap.  v.  p.  10® 


THE  AMPHICTT ONIC  LEAGUE 


81 


The  student  of  the  great  slave  system  sees  the  absurdity 
of  attributing  this  ancient  series  of  protective  organiza¬ 
tions  either  to  ambitious  military  schemes  or  to  pure 
piety,  although  they  are  given  to  us  by  historians,  as  a  sys¬ 
tem  of  neighbors  organized  to  protect  and  perpetuate 
the  worship  of  the  Gods.  They  come  down  to  us  from 
the  gloomy  tradition  of  high  antiquity  ;  and  to  the  two 
first  mentioned  classes  they  are  utterly  incomprehensible. 
The  sociologist  however,  who  sees  the  slaves  growing  in 
numbers  while  the  gens 88  remained  stationary  in  num¬ 
bers,  can  easily  picture  the  causes  and  spirit  of  these 
leagues.  They  were  confederations  of  the  lords  or  indi¬ 
vidual  owners  of  the  patrimonies  or  estates.  These  es¬ 
tates,  as  we  have  seen,  fell  to  the  lords,  by  entail  in  pri¬ 
mogeniture.  The  Amphictyony 89  was  simply  a  co-opera¬ 
tive  association  of  the  lords  to  defend  their  estates;  and 
they  most  naturally,  as  customary  with  ail  Pagan  ancients, 
held  forth  first  and  foremost  the  horrors  of  irreligion, 
knowing  that  the  superstition  of  the  slaves  was  their  true 
stronghold,  since  by  making  it  appear  that  attack  upon 
or  contemptuousness  of  the  holy  property  was  an  unpar¬ 
donable  misdemeanor  or  even  to  utter  words  of  conspiracy 
against  that  property  remaining  in  the  hands  of  the  first 
bom  son,  was  blasphemy.  This  superstition  thus  incul¬ 
cated  was  always,  in  ancient  times,  the  bulwark  of  pro¬ 
tection  to  the  nobles.  Ihe  Amphictyony  existed  2,000 
years  before  Christ,  probably  even  much  prior  to  that 
time,  and  grew  more  and  more  powerful,  until  about  B. 
C.  700  it  had  grown  in  numeric  strength  and  in  the  sub¬ 
tle  art  of  self-protection  so  that  it  assumed  the  dignity  of 
*  the  Amphictyonic  Council,  seated  itself  in  the  holy  tem¬ 
ples  of  Apollo  and  Demeter,  and  had  delegates  who  met 
there  spring  and  autumn,  representing  twelve  tribes  or 
states  of  Greece  and  the  Archipelago.  Some  600  years 
before  Christ  the  Amphictyonic  Council  had  misundei- 
standings  with  its  delegates  and  wars  of  extermination 
began.  These  troubles  were  called  the  holy  wars.  It  is 
known  that  for  many  centuries  these  corporations  pro¬ 
tected  themselves  mutually.  If  one  of  the  small  neighbor  - 

8« Latin  “Gens,”  whence  the  “gentry.”  See  Mann’s  Ancient  and  Mediaeval 
Republics,  chapter  vi. 

i»Fiske.  American  Political  Ideas,  d.  72. 


TREATMENT  OF  TEE  POOR 


n 

hoods  represented  in  and  protected  by  the  federation  was 
attacked  or  threatened,  the  entire  power  of  all  the  others 
was  thrown  together  in  its  defense.  The  article  of  agree¬ 
ment  between  them  ran  as  follows:  Not  to  destroy  or  al 
low  to  be  destroyed  or  cut  off  from  water,  in  peace  or 
war,  any  town  in  the  Amphictyonic  brotherhood ;  not  to 
plunder40  the  property  of  the  god  or  treacherously  ex¬ 
tract  valuables  from  the  sanctum.  N ow  in  face  of  the 
fact  that  there  were  by  this  time  great  numbers  of  sup¬ 
ernumerary  slaves  who  had,  on  account  of  their  servitude 
and  the  abuses  they  suffered,  become  reckless,  fierce  and 
ready  to  enter  upon  a  life  of  desperate  revolt,  still  we  find 
writers  denying  that  this  brotherhood  had  any  other  idea 
than  a  purely  religious  one.  To  the  searching  sociologist 
it  is  quite  clear  that  this  organization  must  have  been  one 
of  the  very  first  efforts  of  the  Indo-Europeans  to  form  a 
government  for  the  protection  of  property, 

From  incipiency  this  must  have  been  the  earliest  form 
of  government.  But  it  was  an  aristocratic  government 
which  cast  a  taint  on  labor.  It  perpetuated  the  holi¬ 
ness  of  property  which  has  ever  since  upheld  the  dogma 
of  divine  right  of  the  fathers  and  of  kings  and  is  prob¬ 
ably  the  originator  of  that  dogma.  Away  back  in  the 
past,  before  the  country  had  become  thickly  peopled  and 
while  superstition  combined  with  rigid  rules  of  the 
masters,  kept  down  all  danger  of  revolt  among  the  slaves, 
there  were  no  cities. 41  We  have  not  space  in  this  work 
to  explain  the  phenomenon  of  the  ancient  city,  but  refer 
the  curious  to  Dr.  Fustel,  whose  work42  cannot  be  perused 
without  profit.  Modern  scholars  are  making  valuable  com¬ 
pilations  of  evidence  showing  that  cities,  like  nearly  ev¬ 
erything  else,  were  a  natural  and  gradual  growth. 

The  great  Hesiod,  himself  a  poor  freedman  if  not  a  slave, 
may  have  had  the  Amphictyonic  league  and  its  wars  in 
mind  when  he  wrote  : 

“Men's  right  arm  in  law  ;  for  spoils  they  wait 
And  lay  tlaeir  mutual  cities  desolate.”  « 


4#  The  custom  was  to  bury  with  the  deceased  father  many  precious  articles 
of  which  he  was  fond  in  life.  See  Funck-Brentano,  La  Civilisation  et  set  Lois, 
on  this  Fetish  custom  and  his  evidence  that  the  favorite  wife  was  often  buried 
alive  along  with  the  other  trinkets ;  livre  II.  c.  iL  pp.  114-116. 

41  Fustel  de  Coulanges,  Citt  Antique,  liv. III.  c.  ii.  etliL  *2  Id.  III.  c.  1 
43  Hesiod,  'Epy«  *ai  'H nepai,  V.  161. 


CHAPTER  IV, 


ELEUS1NIAN  MYSTERIES 

ANCIENT  GRIEVANCES  OF  THE  WORKERS. 

Working  People  destitute  of  Souls — Original  popular  Beliefs — 
Plato  finally  gives  them  half  a  Soul — Modern  Ignorance  on 
the  true  Causes  of  certain  Developments  in  History — Sym¬ 
pathy,  the  Third  G-reat  Emotion  developed  out  of  growing 
Reason,  through  mutual  Commiseration  of  the  Outcasts — 
A  new  Cult — The  Unsolved  Problem  of  the  great  Eleusinian 
Mysteries— -Their  wonderful  Story — Grievances  of  slighted 
Workingmen — Organization  impossible  to  Slaves  except  in 
their  Strikes  and  Rebellions — The  Aristocrats’  Politics  and 
Religion  barred  the  Doors  against  Work-people — Extraor¬ 
dinary  Whims  and  Antics  at  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries — The 
Causes  of  Grievances  endured  by  the  Castaway  Laborers — 
Their  Motives  for  Secret  Organization — The  Terrible  Cryp- 
tia—  The  horrible  Murders  of  Workingmen  for  Sport — Dark 
Deeds  Unveiled — Story  of  the  Massacre  of  2,000  Working¬ 
men — Evidence — The  Grievances  in  Sparta — In  Athens — 
Free  Outcast  Builders,  Sculptors,  Teachers,  Priests,  Dancers, 
Musicians,  Artisans,  Diggers,  all  more  or  less  Organized — Re¬ 
turn  to  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries — Conclusion. 

Boeing  the  long  period  occupying — in  the  case  of  the 
Indo-European  race  from  which  most  of  us  are  derived, 
several  thousand  years,  there  came  about  a  differentia¬ 
tion  in  favor  of  the  slaves.  Granier  in  his  bright  exposi¬ 
tion  of  this  great  social  subject,  declares  slavery  to  have 
been  the  natural  outcome  of  the  Pagan,  or  family  religion.1 
Fustel  de  Coulanges  in  his  instructive  and  extraordinarily 
lucid  work  has  proved  every  word  written  by  Graniei 

*  Hist,  des  C  asses  Ouvri'eres,  pp.  39-41.  Vide  chap.  lii.  passim. 


u 


TEE  MYSTERIES. 


upon  this  daring  theme,  to  be  true.*  Philosophers  of  our 
age,  catching  at  written  and  unwritten  obscurities  which 
saliently  obtrude  upon  the  path  of  researchers  groping  in 
sociology,  are  getting  down  to  real  causes  of  events  which 
for  2,000  years  remained  phenomena  un deciphered.  Ages 
upon  ages  have  rolled  and  the  mouldering  stones  and  tab¬ 
lets,  invaluable  with  their  begrimed  inscriptions,  have  sau¬ 
cily  stared  at  science,  unheeded.  Furtive  hints  by  anci¬ 
ent  historians  for  centuries  have  mocked  the  lore  of  uni¬ 
versities,  bearing  their  inuendos  which  failed  to  insult 
the  professorial  sticklers  to  our  darling  notes  and  emen¬ 
dations.  Great  Social  wars  with  ominous  wing  have  been 
flopping  and  airing  our  ignorance  as  to  their  deep,  sup¬ 
pressed  causes.  Then  the  downfall  of  the  Roman  empire 
— that  of  all  others  most  inexplicable  wonder — has  been 
for  twenty  centuries  chopped  up  into  indigestible  morsels 
and  administered  to  students  of  history  searching  after 
great  events  and  ecclesiastical  lore.  At  last  the  student 
of  sociology  enters  the  field.  He  is  philosopher  enough 
to  divest  himself  of  the  crusty  film  in  which  prejudice  is 
encysted  and  manly  enough  to  step  out  of  the  contumeli¬ 
ous  state  and  like  a  Murillo  go  down  among  the  tatterde¬ 
malions  and  give  them  credit  for  what  they  were. 

Society  began  with  the  bully.*  It  began  with  unbridled 
irascibility,  concupiscence  and  egoism.  This  creature, 
man,  having  killed  or  clubbed  away  the  others,  sought 
among  the  females  the  handsomest  mate  and  in  the  best 
cave  or  hut  began  the  family.  The  Aryan  is  not  a  nomad. 
He  wants  a  home,  a  permanent  residence.  He  is  brigand 
enough  to  launch  forth  into  all  the  enterprizes  of  plunder, 
but  he  returns  to  his  home.  This  home  remained  his  fast¬ 
ness  which  be  -would  not  quit.  The  land  around  it  be¬ 
came  his.  When  children  came  they  were  also  his. 
When  they  grew  strong  and  could  work,  his  concupiscence 
differentiated  into  cupidity;  and  begetting  many,  he  forced 
them  to  work.  They  became  his  slaves.  If  the  little  ones 
refused  or  otherwise  displeased  him  his  irascible  impulses 
prevailed  and  he  killed  them.  Those  whom  he  could 
not  spare  he  only  punished.  His  irascibility  made  him  a 

%La  Cite  Antique,  pp.  76-89;  See  also  Iliad.  xxL,  Odyssey,  xxlLr  I^viUous. 
XXV.  40,  41,  44,  47,  48. 

*  W©  are  forced  to  employ  this  homely  term  u  there  exist©  In  Engl’sh  no 
ether  which  so  nearly  conveys  onr  idea. 


OHIO  IN  OF  THE  PROLETARIAT. 


85 


tyrant,  while  his  acquisitiveness  made  him  rich.  He  be¬ 
came  a  lord.  Sympathy  was  a  stranger  to  his  bosom 
though  no  doubt  it  worked  an  influence  at  an  early  day 
in  moulding  the  nature  of  the  family,  as  we  know  there 
were  favorites. 

He  lived  in  the  wonder-world.  The  phenomena  of  na¬ 
ture  he  could  not  understand.  There  were  thunders  and 
lightnings,  but  electricity  was  a  terror  which  shaped  a 
god.  When  this  god  of  nature  grew  into  shape  upon  his 
imagination  his  egoism  coveted  its  glory  and  immortality 
and  the  bully  came  to  imagine  himself  a  god;  and  assumed 
for  himself  power  and  immortality  deifying  himself  at 
death  and  ordaining  his  first-born  son  his  worshiper  and 
the  sole  inheritor  of  his  fortune.  The  remuneration  de¬ 
manded  of  the  son  for  this  succession  was  the  paternal 
worship  and  the  deification  and  adoration  of  the  dead  fa¬ 
ther,  now  a  saint.  Egoism  was  thus  the  originator  of  the 
Pagan  religion,  of  immortality  and  of  the  sainthood.4 

It  was  a  part  of  the  genius  of  this  cult  to  be  aristocratic 
and  exclusive.  It  inculcated  divine  rights  of  masters,  of 
noble  lords  and  afterwards  of  kings.  On  the  other  hand 
it  was  a  part  of  the  genius  of  paganism  to  have  slaves. 
It  was  so  exclusively  aristocratic  that  only  a  very  few  could 
possibly  enjoy  its  beatitudes.  The  rest  were  obliged  to  be 
castaways.  The  castaways  who  were  debarred  the  favorit¬ 
ism  of  eternal  life  through  the  aristocratic  burial  and  dei¬ 
fication  were  slaves,  doomed  by  an  inheritance  of  expro¬ 
priation  and  of  poverty,  to  slavery.  When  they  became 
numerous,  although  wretched,  there  now  and  then  devel¬ 
oped  a  man  or  woman  of  genius.  Bereft  of  everything 
tangible,  they  still  had  minds.  With  minds  they  consid¬ 
ered  and  discussed  their  lowly  condition;  with  strength 
and  ingenuity  some  worked  themselves  out  of  bondage  and 
became  freedmen.  As  freedmen  they  began  to  organize 
into  protective  associations  and  trade  unions.  Thus  two 
distinct  parties  were  formed. 

Meantime  the  power  of  the  lords  or  property  owners 
increased  but  not  so  rapidly  in  numeric  strength  as  the 
power  of  the  outcast,  and  the  grandees,  seeing  the  bondmen, 
runaways  and  freedmen  forming  into  communes,  some  as 

«  Latin  piganui,  of,  or  belonging  to  the  country,  pagus.  There  were  then 
no  town  a  or  citiei  These  came  later.  Cf.  La  Cite  Antique,  patsim. 


86 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


tradesmen,  some  as  brigands,  all  dissatisfied,  some  very 
dangerous,  also  betook  themselves  to  organization.  Thus 
there  were  two  distinct  classes.  Which  of  these  two  clas¬ 
ses  began  earliest  to  organize  for  self  defense  we  cannot  un¬ 
dertake  to  prove  but  reason  conjectures  that  it  must  have 
been  the  outcasts.  But  certain  it  is  6  they  formed  into  power¬ 
ful  p hr o tries 6  or  curies  for  mutual  assistance,  sometimes  un¬ 
der  religious  pretenses,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Italian  collegia . 

All  along,  parallel  with  eacii  other  through  time,  these 
two  systems,  the  grandees  or  gentes  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  outcasts  or  disinherited  on  the  other,  have  existed,  se¬ 
curing  themselves  by  mutual  organization.  We  do  not  see 
in  history  much  of  the  working  classes.  The  principal  men¬ 
tion  made  of  them  is  in  connection  with  slavery  and  the 
concomitant  degradation  of  servitude.  We  know  from 
certain  passages  in  history  that  insurrections  or  slave  re¬ 
bellions  occurred.  Some  of  them  were  on  a  prodigious 
scale.  Plutarch  mentions  instances  where  the  masters  by 
decree  of  the  phratries  sometimes  allured  large  numbers  of 
the  slaves  on  plea  of  a  festival  or  bunt  and  when  at  a  con¬ 
venient  spot  fell  upon  and  murdered  them  by  hundreds, 
merely  to  get  rid  of  a  dangerous  element.7  That  the  ser¬ 
vile  element  keenly  felt  the  contempt  in  which  they  were  re¬ 
garded,  crops  out  in  the  records  of  the  remote  past.  We 
propose  to  give  many  instances. 

The  exclusion  of  slaves,  freedinen  and  afterwards  Christ¬ 
ians  from  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  gives  the  student  of  so¬ 
ciology  an  important  hint  to  pages  of  the  unwritten  labor 
question;  showing  the  reasons  why  the  outcasts  resorted  to 
co-operation  among  themselves,  as  an  only  practical  court 
of  appeals  to  any  power  against  oppression  when  aggrieved. 
All  writers  who  have  spoken  of  this  celebrated  and  myste¬ 
rious  organization  agree  that  it  was  very  ancient.  As  we 
have  found  irrefutable  evidences  of  numerous  trade  unions 
so  early  as  the  eighth  and  ninth  century  before  Christ,  we 

8  Fustel  de  Oonlanges,  CiU  Antique,  lib.  II.  pp.  89-89,  LaFamille;  Mann’s 

Ancient  and  Media  cal  Republics,  pp.  *22-27. 

•Morgan,  Ancient  Societies,  p.  88 :  “The  tiparpla  is  a  brotherhood,  as  the  term 
Imports ;  and  a  natural  growth  from  the  organization  into  gentes.  It  is  an  organic 
union  or  association  of  two  or  more  gentes  of  the  saine  tribe  for  certain  connnoD 
objects,  'those  gentes  were  usually  such  as  had  been  formed  by  the  segmenta 
tion  of  an  original  gens.”  i  bis  author  sees  some  analogy  between  the  undent 
Greek  and  Roman  gens  and  certain  tribes  of  North  American  Indians  ;  notably 
the  Iroquois.  Consult  chapters  ii.  and  iii. 

7  Plutarch,  Lycurgus\  also  Lycurgus  and  Numa  compared. 


THE  ORIGINAL  CRUS  ADR 


87 


need  not  trace  the  Eleusinian  band  back  of  that  time.  It 
is  however,  worthy  of  remark  that  this  organization  existed 
at  a  much  earlier  date  and  that,  although  the  societies  of  the 
workmen  do  not  as  luminously  come  to  the  front  on  oc- 
count  of  this  stigma  which  made  them  secret  and  prevented 
their  recognition,  it  is  no  proof  whatever  that  they  did  not 
also  exist.  The  organization  known  as  the  Eleusinians,8  ac¬ 
cording  to  ancient  authors  was  in  full  force  1,500  years  be¬ 
fore  Christ.  Cicero  who  was  an  admirer  of  all  the  Pagan 
forms  that  tended  to  hand  down  the  exclusive  splendor  and 
dignity  of  the  aristocratic  stock,  believed  these  feasts  to 
have  belonged  to  the  remotest  antiquity  and  that  they 
lasted  the  longest  of  almost  any  institution.*  Like  the  great 
trade-union  move  nent  they  transmit  unwritten  records 
through  an  occasional  slab,  bearing  inscriptions.10 

The  Eleusinian  crusade  was  a  celebrated  and  exclusively 
aristocratic  religious  festival  in  honor  of  the  goddess  Dem¬ 
eter  or  Ceres,11  held  at  Eleusis,  a  large  town  some  ten  miles 
from  Athens,  in  Attic  Greece.  It  was  a  great  outpouring 
from  Athens,  every  5  years  in  the  mouth  Boedromion ,ia  last¬ 
ing  nine  days,  The  great  preparations  made  before  the  fes¬ 
tival  began,  the  extraordinary  solemnity  of  the  affair,  the 
manner  in  which  the  Athenians  attended  it  in  a  drome  or 
chanting  caravansary,  gave  it  the  appearance  of  a  crusade. 
It  was  the  origin  of  all  well  known  crusades.  The  attend¬ 
ance  at  this  crusade  was  a  trial  of  one’s  eligibility  to  the 
blessings  of  life  eternal.  Eleusis  means  a  trysting  place ; 
consequently  it  is  probable  that  the  great  games  suggested 
the  name  of  the  place,  and  once  established  upon  a  project¬ 
ing  rock  of  the  sea,  the  city  afterward  grew  around  it  and  in 
course  of  time  held  a  large  population.  There  are  some 
touching  mementoes  which  may  be  gleaned  from  this  cele¬ 
brated  name.  Whoever  rea  ls  the  bible  in  Greek  finds  fre¬ 
quent  mention  of  this  word  in  the  signification  of  the  com¬ 
ing  of  the  Saviour.  It  is  a  symbolic  word.  Emblems  in 

» In  later  centuries  the  little  Mysteries  continued  though  they  were  not  con¬ 
futed  to  Eleusis. 

*  Cicero,  De  Legibus,  II.  cap.  XVI.;  Panegyricus  of  Isocrates ,  6. 

•  ■!  udging  from  the  slab  of  Paros  they  began  in  the  fifteenth  century  before 
ChrM,  Larousse,  Didionnaire  Universe!,  Art  Les  pjgasiniens. 

,!  Ceres,  like  the  Pelasglc  Hermes  was  theithyi  hallicdeity,  having  power 
over  reproduction  and  the  supplies  of  life.  Cf.  n.ucyc.  lint.  vol.  XI.  p.  67o. 

"i  B<jr)Spofjuwv,  the  space  of  time  from  September  15th  to  October  15th  ; 
from  ^otjpofjLeu),  I  chase  with  a  shout  Tiie-mus  in  the  battle  with  the  Amazons, 
c In -e  d  them  with  cries  It  is  a  word  of  great  antiquity  Plutarch,  Theses «, 


88 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


those  days  were  common ;  and  much  that  is  unexplained  or 
that  may  yet  be  explained— unexplained  through  ignorance 
or  neglect — comes  out,  by  a  proper  interpretation  of  em¬ 
blems. 

But  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  were  too  absurdly  exclusive 
to  stand  the  erosions  of  what  is  known  as  progress.  In  per¬ 
fect  agreement  with  what  we  have  said  regarding  the  ex¬ 
clusive  character  of  their  worship,  centering  it  upon  the 
egoistic  household  name,  forcing  a  puffed  aristocracy  by 
dint  of  glorifying  a  human  creature  and  cutting  off  that 
glory  from  the  many,  especially  those  who  toil,  it  had  made 
itself  odious  and  intolerable  long  before  the  advent  of  Christ. 
Yet  the  antiquity  and  greatness  of  the  try  sting  scenes  at 
Eleusis  had  become  renowned  in  every  well-known  part  of 
the  world.  All  over  Palestine,  long  afterwards  the  cradle 
of  another  but  infinitely  more  democratic  plan  of  worship, 
this  curious  practice  was  well-known.  In  Italy  and  Africa 
its  fame  had  gone  forth. 

We  are  not  speaking  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  merely 
to  recount  a  paltry  historico-ecclesiastical  fact.  We  are 
making  a  point  in  sociologic  research.  We  therefore  ask 
our  reader’s  indulgence  in  comparing  the  social  life  of  home- 
spun  work-people  through  a  metaphor  as  opposite  as  the 
Eleusinian  emblems.  Yet  it  is  no  metaphor.  It  bears  with 
it  a  bone  of  contention  which  raged  for  centuries,  split  and 
divided,  founded  heresies,  sophistries,  philosophies,  provoked 
labor  unions,  involved  work-people  in  communism,  drew  out 
discussion  and  laid  the  foundation  of  the  religion  of  Jesus 
in  after  years.  We  now  proceed  to  explain  how  this  was 
done.  In  ancient  mythology  Proserpine,  or  as  some  write  it, 
Persephone,  was  the  beautiful  daughter  of  Ceres  the  Demeter, 
and  of  Jupiter.  Pluto  the  god  of  the  infernal  regions  fell 
in  love  with  Proserpine  and  while  she  was  in  the  act  of 
gathering  flowers  in  a  vale  of  Enna  in  Sicily,  stole  her  from 
her  mother,  carrying  her  off  to  his  nether-world  home.1* 
The  mother  though  an  immortal  and  living  on  the  heights 
of  Enna  the  Sicilian  Olympus,  was  so  grieved  at  the  loss  of 
her  child  that  she  came  down  from  heaven,  betook  to  her¬ 
self  the  garb  of  mortals,  became  an  old  woman,  assumed 
the  duties  of  a  nurse  and  wandered  through  the  country, 

is/a/V-o,  chap  vilL,  containing  the  story  of  Bonus  and  the  great  servile  war 


THE  LOST  CHILD  FOUND. 


89 


ptyin g  her  profession  for  a  subsistance  from  place  to  place. 
She  went  to  Eleusis  and  there  got  employment.  It  was  a 
job  of  nursing  a  child  of  the  king  of  the  place.  The  child’s 
name  was  Demophon  and  under  the  celestial  solicitude  of 
this  goddess  in  disguise,  Metanira,  the  mother,  beheld  with 
astonishment  and  curiosity  the  marvelous  thrift  of  her  boy, 
Ceres  breathed  upon  him  the  breath  of  life,  dressed  him 
with  ambrosial  ointment  and  at  night  used  to  purge  the 
dross  of  mortality  from  him  by  immersing  him  in  a  bath  of 
mysterious  fire,  with  an  object  of  making  him  also  immor¬ 
tal.  But  one  night  the  fond  and  curious  mother  peeped 
through  the  veil  screening  the  immortalizing  process  of 
trans-substantiation  and  seeing  the  boy  pendent  in  a  halo  of 
flame  screamed  with  affright,  causing  the  haggard  old  nurse 
to  let  the  youngster  drop  deep  into  the  consuming  pit 
where  he  instantly  perished.  The  hag  then,  to  save  herself, 
threw  off  her  disguise  became  rehabilitated  and  forced  the 
people  of  Eleuses  to  build  her  a  temple  to  dwell  in  while  still 
continuing  her  search  for  the  lost  Proserpine.  Now  the 
professional  business  of  Jupiter  was  to  watch  the  interests 
of  mortal  men.  But  Ceres  unable  to  endure  the  loss  of  her 
stolen  child  and  remembering  the  details  of  her  husband’s 
escape  when  a  babe  from  the  ferocious  Saturn,  struck  the 
earth  with  her  wand  of  famine.  She  rebelled  energetically 
against  the  shape  of  things,  and  at  last  Jupiter  came  to  the 
rescue  of  the  innocent  denizens  of  the  earth  as  a  profes¬ 
sional  duty.  This  led  to  the  discovery  of  Proserpine.  From 
her  temple  at  Eleusis,  Demeter  who  was  the  protectress  of 
the  products  of  labor  made  things  uncomfortable  for  the  peo¬ 
ple  who  were  in  her  husband’s  care.  They  were  stricken 
with  malaria.  Contagion  spread.  The  ground  ceased  to 
produce  and  the  horrors  of  famine  engulfed  them.  Men 
prayed,  sacrificed,  and  besought  their  patron  gods,  each 
gens  for  itself,  and  urged  the  further  combination  of  gentile 
tribes  into  phratries  to  no  effect  until  great  Jove  at  last  got 
Mercury  to  visit  Erebus  who  went  down  into  the  pagan  in¬ 
ferno  where  Pluto  was  enjoying  the  charms  of  the  beautiful 
stolen  prize.  Thus  the  sly  god  got  found  out.  This  pagan 
inferno  was  Hades  where  Pluto  was  king.  He,  like  Satan 
was  cunning.  He  knew  that  by  tempting  her,  as  the  devil 
a  time  before  had  tempted  Eve,  he  could  induce  her  to  eat 
the  forbidden  fruit;— this  time  a  pomegranite  seed.  Un« 


00 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


warily  she  was  lured  into  the  temptation  which  cost  her  a 
fourth  part  of  each  year,  for  the  rest  of  her  immortal  exis¬ 
tence,  in  the  infernal  abode  with  Pluto.  The  other  three- 
fourths  of  the  year,  however,  she  was  permitted  to  pass 
upon  earth. 

Such  is  the  ridiculous  story  which  among  the  ancients, 
was  believed  at  the  point  of  the  poniard  or  under  penalty 
of  the  hemlock  for  at  least  two  thousand  years.  To  cavil 
with  its  austere  sanctity  was  a  heresy  costing  the  blasphem- 
ist  his  life  and  every  hope  of  immortality. 

Some  palliation  of  the  absurdity  of  this  sub-terrestrial 
abode  is  furnished  by  the  qualification  that  in  ancient  belie! 
the  world  was  flat,  not  round ;  and  between  the  two 
flat  surfaces  there  flowed  a  river  with  whose  murky  waters 
Erebus  had  something  to  do.  On  the  other  side,  once 
there,  the  journeying  immortals  were  ushered  into  view  of 
the  indescribable  beatitudes  of  the  elysium.  This  gorgeous 
terra  incognita  was  not  to  be  reached  without  passing  the 
terrible  cynocephalous  or  many-headed  watchdog  named 
Cerberus.  But  heaven  was  on  the  other  side.  Passage 
from  this  to  that  was  the  agony. 

Now  Ceres,  the  wife  of  the  mighty  Jupiter  and  mother 
of  the  lovely  Proserpine,  was  the  goddess  of  the  harvests. 
She  represented  the  cereals.  She  rode  on  a  jagatnatha  drawn 
by  dragons.  Her  brow  was  coronated  with  wreaths  of 
wheat.  This  rape  of  Proserpine  by  Pluto  on  the  ragged 
edge,  between  our  world  of  mortals  and  heaven  became  em¬ 
blematic  of  the  agonies  of  winter  ; — from  autumn  when  the 
the  wheat  was  sown,  then  the  cold  hyemal  gloom  of  gesta¬ 
tion  in  the  dark  borderlands,  the  trysting  place,  the  hyper¬ 
borean  domain  of  hades ;  thence  over  the  half  congelated 
Styx  was  ferried  the  elastic  imagination  by  the  money  get¬ 
ting  Charon,  and  behold,  the  vernal  raptures  of  heaven 
and  its  elysian  fields  appear,  full  of  springing  verdure,  the 
land  of  exquisite  delight ! 

Such  was  the  Mythic  origin  of  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries. 
They  were  weird  forms  of  imagination,  assimilating  things 
real  with  things  unreal  and  working  them  up  into  maxims, 
emblems  and  creeds,  until  they  assumed  a  priesthood  and 
became  an  organization  of  men  and  women  knit  by  the  tie 
of  secrecy  which  nothing  but  the  long  fluctuations  of  pro¬ 
gress  could  unbind. 


THE  MYSTERIOUS  RITES. 


91 


What  the  actual  performance  was  at  the  penetralia  of  the 
Eleusinian  mysteries  nobody  knows.  We  know  that  they 
were,  in  their  prime,  symbolic  of  the  procreative  ernergy  of 
nature.  But  they  were  attended  with  certain  extraordinary 
rites.  What  were  these  rites?  They  were  also  conducive 
to  the  science  of  eternal  bliss. 

Who  secured  that  bliss  ?  In  answering  these  two  ques¬ 
tions  we  must  return  to  the  kernel  of  our  theme — the  labor 
element.  To  the  first  one  of  them,  the  answer  is  vague. 
This  we  know,  that  the  rites  consisted  of  dramatic  repre¬ 
sentations  of  the  rape  of  Proserpine,  daughter  of  Ceres, 
goddess  of  the  vegetable  kingdom,  of  the  fields,  and  labor, 
who  was  supposed  to  preside  over  the  cereals  and  other 
alimentation  of  man.  This  rape  was  performed  by  Pluto  ; 
and  in  its  emblematic  mysticisms  conveys  the  idea  not  only 
of  procreation  but  also  of  immortality  of  the  human  soul.14 
Whether  more  may  still  be  contributed  by  science  to  these 
strange  and  intensely  interesting  rites  is  yet  to  be  seen.  As 
late  as  1858  an  important  addition  to  our  knowledge  of  the 
Eleusinian  mysteries  has  been  contributed  in  the  discovery 
by  Ylastos,  at  a  village  named  Hagi-Constantios,  of  a  mar¬ 
ble  slab  containing  an  inscription  including  rules  and  regu¬ 
lations  of  the  society. 

The  first  day  of  the  nine  was  celebrated  perhaps  partly 
in  Athens  or  before  the  arrival  at  Eleusis.  On  the  march 
from  Athens  to  Eleusis  the  jealous  outcasts  who  were  ex¬ 
cluded  from  the  raptures  of  the  scene,  always  ranged  them¬ 
selves  in  hostile  array  and  belabored  the  marchers  with 
stones  and  clubs,  until  the  arrival  of  the  procession  at  the 
temple  of  Megaron.15 

The  second  day  was  called  alade  mustae.  It  was  the 
16th  of  Boedromion.  It  was  the  day  of  the  baptism,  being 
a  march  in  phalanx  to  the  sea.  The  procession  here  received 
their  baptism  and  purification.  The  third  was  the  day  of 
the  feasting.  On  the  fourth  day  the  poppey  seeds  were  ad- 


n  Uwaroff,  Essai  sur  lesmysQres  d'  tlleusis,  3rd.  edition,  Paris,  1810;  Creu - 
zer’u  Syinbolik  urul  Mithologie  der  alien  Volker  ;  Preller,  Demeter  und  Persephone 
Hamburg,  1837. 

ie  For  a  description  of  the  temple  of  Megaron  at  Eleusis,  see  Guhl  and  Ko* 
ner.  Life  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  translated  by  Iluetl  er,  pp.  48-9.  The  dark 
crypt  where  the  mysteries  were  performed  by  the  Mvo-Taywyoi  also  the  initia¬ 
tions,  was  under  ground.  From  Aristophanes  (Piato,  Bekk.  L.  ed.  Repub.  in  cap. 
xvii.),  we  learn  that  at  the  initiations  they  sacrificed  a  hog.  Aristophanes,  Pax, 
v.  373  5,  has  the  passage  hinted  at. 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


n 


ministered.  This  rite  represented  the  stupefying  influence 
of  the  narcissus  under  which  the  maiden  Persephone  was 
stolen  away.  Orpheus  was  the  hi&'ophant  or  priest  whose 
duty  it  was  to  initiate  eligible  candidates  into  the  mysteries. 
He  was  assisted  by  Erechtheis  daughter  of  Erechtheus  the 
smasher.  It  is  quite  likely  that  this  initiating  ceremony  was 
some  kind  of  violent  struggle.  It  must  have  been  attended 
by  oaths  of  fidelity  under  punishment  of  death  to  any  one 
who  divulged  the  secret.  The  initiation  took  place  in  the 
night  or  in  the  dark  crypt  of  the  temple,  as  the  daclouchos  or 
torch-bearer  was  in  attendance  and  his  torch-procession  rep¬ 
resented  the  search  for  the  lost  daughter  of  Ceres.  This 
dadouchos  was  a  priest  holding,  as  Xenophon  tells  us,  the 
office  hereditarily  for  life ;  and  at  his  decease  it  fell  to  an¬ 
other  of  the  same  family,  the  Callidae .  There  was  also  a 
great  sacrificial  rite  performed,  who  or  what  the  victim,  is 
not  very  clear ;  but  the  herald  of  the  sacrifice,  the  hiero~ 
ceryx  was  always  there.16  The  new  initiates  were  not  per¬ 
mitted  to  eat  flesh.  Even  the  hierophant  or  initiating 
priest  was  required  to  live  on  low  diet  that  passion  might 
be  restrained  during  the  ordeal.11  He  drank  a  decoction  of 
hemlock  which  had  the  effect  to  benumb  the  sensibilities,  a 
thing  exceedingly  appropriate  at  the  moment  of  this  ex 
tatic  enjoyment,  where,  if  we  are  to  believe  Maury,  a  critic 
well  credited  and  much  quoted  on  this  subject,  all  around, 
the  voluptuous  nobles  of  both  sexes  take  their  turns.  The 
unscrupulus  dictionnaire  universel ,18  quoting  from  the  above 

l*  Creuzer,  Synibolik  und  Mylhologie  der  aXtm  VOUcer, 

11  Larousse,  Dictionnaire  Universel,  Art.  Lee  Kleusinient. 

is  “On  repreeentait  dans  une  sorte  de  drame  hieratiqne  le  raptde  la  fllle  Pro¬ 
serpine.  On  passait  par  le  veritable  rencontre  du  Bacrament.”  Art.  Myst'eres 
Eleusiniens.  For  an  account  of  this  extraordinary  symbolism  among  the  abor¬ 
iginal  Americans  see  Bancroft’s  Native  Races,  III.  p  607.  Is  it  not  a 
possible  thing  that  this  symbolism  may  have  come  to  the  Aleuts  and  Pepiies 
from  custom  as  and  nt  and  original  as  the  Eleusinlan  mysteries?  Ban¬ 
croft  says:  “The  Pep  ies  abstained  from  the  r  w  ves  *  *  *  *  previous  to 
Bowing,  in  order  to  indulge  *  *  *  *  to  the  fullest  extent  on  the  eve  of  that 
day,  e'  idently  with  a  v  ew  to  initiate  or  urge  he  fecundating  powers  of  na¬ 
ture.  It  is  even  said  that  certain  persons  were  appointed  to  periorm  the 
sexual  act  at  the  moment  of  planting  the  first  seed.  During  the  b  tter 
cold  nights  of  the  Hyperborean  winter,  the  Aleuts,  both  men  and  women 
joined  hands  n  the  open  air  and  whirled  per  ectly  naked  round  certain 
1  ols,  lighted  only  by  the  pale  moon.  The  spirit  was  supposed  to  hallow 
the  dance  with  hi  prt  sence.  There  certainly  could  have  been  no  licentious 
element  in  this  ceremony,  :or  Betting  aside  the  d.soomfort  of  dancing  naked 
with  the  thermometer  at  zero,  we  read  that  the  danoei-s  were  blindfolded, 
and  that  decorum  was  strictly  enforced.  In  Nicaragua,  maize  sprinkled 
with  blood  drawn  from  the  genitals  was  regarded  as  sacred  food.”  Addi¬ 
tionally  to  this  fact,  Bancroft  says,  (III.  p.  606,  quoting  Palacio,  Corta,  p.  84] 


WILD  SCRAMBLE  OF  INITIATION. 


93 


author  has  no  hesitation  in  hinting  that  the  great  secret 
which  in  this  case  was  a  veritable  sanctum  sanctorum ,  was 
nothing  less  than  a  wild  scrambling  and  voluptuous  ero¬ 
tomania,  such  as  might  happen  after  a  feast  of  wine. 
Within  these  penetralia  are  thus  said  to  have  happened  an 
exuberance  of  voluptuousness,  a  struggle  to  feign  escape,  an 
agony  and  a  glory  of  fullest  effulgence  emblematically  rep¬ 
resenting  each,  in  turn,  the  process  of  nature  from  the  time 
seed  is  sown  in  autumn,  through  the  gloom  and  struggle  of 
winter  to  the  genial  spring  when  the  new  cereals  burst  from 
their  first  verdure,  to  their  harvest  for  the  nourishment  of 
man.  At  any  rate  it  is  ascertained  as  certain  that  there 
were  the  course  errante,  the  thalamos  or  fiastos,  the  veil  of 
the  epoptai ,M  and  all  solemnly  conducted  under  the  eye  of 
the  hierophant  and  Erechtheis,  the  priest  and  priestess  of 
the  mysteries.  Maury*0  declares  that  an  entrance  into  the 
fourth  degree  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  not  only  secured 
to  the  initiate  a  positive  guaranty  against  the  dreaded  sup- 
plicium  of  Tartarus,  or  the  lower  hell,  but  it  insured  his 
felicity  in  this  life  also.*1 

This  sketch  of  the  great  Eleusinian  games  may  appear  to 
the  reader  an  aberration  from  our  theme,  the  history  of  the 
laborers  of  ancient  times.  Not  so;  for  it  prepares  the  way 
to  the  student  of  history  from  a  sociologic  point  of  view,  to 
become  acquainted  with  the  grievances  the  poor  were  forced 
to  submit  to.  To  be  born  a  degraded  wretch,  a  mere  in¬ 
strument,  usable  by  a  master  owning  one  as  a  thing  and 
handling  that  thing,  its  labor,  its  destiny  as  an  earthy  tool, 
is  to  a  being  possessed  of  sensibilitv  and  reason,  a  grievance. 
It  is  slavery.  When  this  slave  grows  into  the  reasoning 
being  he  inwardly  rebels  against  the  men  and  the  institu¬ 
tion  by  which  he  is  held  in  bondage.  He  is  wise  enough 
to  foresee  that  his  only  chances  of  wriggling  out  of  bond¬ 
age  and  of  securing  riddance  from  its  grievances  is  by  some 

of  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of  Honduras  and  Mexico:  “The  frequent  occur¬ 
rence  of  the  cross,  which  has  served  in  ao  many  and  such  widely  separated 
parts  of  the  eartn  a*  the  symbol  of  the  life-giving,  creative,  and  fertilizing 
principle  in  nature,  is,  perhaps  one  of  the  most  striking  evidences  of  the  for¬ 
mer  recognition  of  the  reciprocal  principles  of  nature  by  the  Americans:  es 
pectally  wnen  we  remember  that  the  Mexican  name  for  the  emblem  tonaca- 
quahuitl ,  signifies  ‘tree  of  one  life  or  flesh.  ’  ” 

19  Plato,  Phcedrus,  250,  c. ;  Bbckh,  Inzer.  1. 

20  Maury,  Histoirc  des  Religions  de  la  Orhx  Antique. 

®  Plato  tells  us  of  the  Bufferings  of  those  who  fail  to  obtain  purgation  at  the 
mysteries.  Republic,  lib.  II.  cap.  7.  L.  edition. 


04 


TEE  MYSTERIES, . 


institution  of  liis  own  ;  some  court  of  appeal.  Political  in 
stitutions  have  never  given  the  workingman  a  court  of  ap. 
peals.  The  workingman  has  never  yet  had  a  hearing  ; 22 
and  his  reason  and  experience  both  point  to  the  terrible  fact 
that  no  hearing  is  possible  except  before  his  own  court  of 
appeals.  The  trade  union  is,  per  se,  a  true  court  of  appeals. 
We  have  seen  that  the  isolated  gens  or  family  of  nobles, 
when  threatened  by  the  dangers  of  a  growing  population, 
by  pirates,  by  slave  insurrections  and  feuds,  organized  them¬ 
selves  into  phratries,  curias,  kingdoms,  empires  and  thus 
found  means  of  submitting  their  grievances  to  courts  of  jus¬ 
tice  for  settlement.  We  have  also  means  of  knowing  that 
the  laboring  element  had,  on  the  other  hand,  commenced  the 
organization  of  their  forces.  Of  the  former  there  is  suffi¬ 
cient  proof;  of  the  latter,  as  students  in  the  phenomena  of 
ancient  social  life,  we  glean  here  and  there  fresh  proof  from 
inscriptions  on  tablets  of  stone  which  have  survived  the 
heedless  ages,  enabling  us  to  search  anew  the  hitherto 
vaguely  deciphered  meanings  of  expressions  of  the  ancient 
chroniclers,  finding  here  and  there  trophies  of  inestimable 
worth  ;  all  going  to  show  that  the  ancient  laborers,  although 
hated  and  hunted  everywhere  and  very  early,  also  formed 
unions  and  other  courts  of  appeal  against  grievances.  We 
find  evidence  too,  that  these  organizations  commenced  very 
early — perhaps  coeval  with  the  political  organization  of  the 
nobles,  or  even  before. 

But  the  labor  movement  of  this  nineteenth  century  sur¬ 
rounded  by  an  infinitely  more  luminous  moral  atmosphere, 
is  little  likely  to  understand  what  could  possibly  have  been 
the  grievance  of  the  ancient  working  people  against  the 
Eleusinian  games.  What  objections  men  will  say,  couM 
working  people,  ignorant  as  they  were  in  those  times,  have 
had  to  any  means  of  salvation  soul  and  body,  from  suffer¬ 
ing.23  This  brings  the  matter  pertinently  before  us  !  The 
Eleusinian  mysteries  were  simply  a  religious  rite,  founded 
amid  the  ignorance  of  an  ancient  period  of  our  forefathers’ 
existence.  For  that  era  it  was  enlightened.  What  then, 

22 See  Bristed,  Resources  of  the  United  States,  p.  103,  ed.  1818  and  hie  ref¬ 
erence  to  the  dismal  failure  of  Lycurgns  in  sapping  the  family  of  its  loves  and 
in  encouraging  cruelty. 

23  Bristed,  Idem,  p.  392,  declares  that  all  nations  that  have  given  themselvee 
up  to  erratic  irregularities,  “every  species  of  profligacy”  have  done  so  ae  a  con. 
sequence  of  irrelfgion. 


CONFLICT  OF  CLASSES  AT  THE  CRUSADE.  95 


could  the  lowly  who  performed  the  world’s  drudgery,  have 
encouraged,  in  opposition  to  it? 

Those  who  thus  interrogate,  do  bo  in  the  absence  of  an 
understanding  of  the  question.  The  laboring  classes,  though 
socially  degraded,  had  sensitive  feelings.  They,  like  their 
masters,  were  believers  in  the  common  religion  and  its 
forms.  They  cannot  be  blamed  for  that.  But  while  they 
saw  their  masters  favored  with  what  they  thought  to  be 
glories  of  religion,  they  found  themselves  utterly  excluded. 
No  one  at  Athens  who  was  a  slave,  or  his  descendant  could 
secure  admittance.  In  fir  later  times  even  Christians  who 
were  the  descendants  of  slaves  and  consequently  mostly  of 
the  laboring  element,  were  denied  admittance.  The  gates, 
from  the  remotest  era  were  arbitrarily  closed  against  the 
workers  who  labored  to  produce  the  means  of  subsistence 
for  the  rich.  The  gorgeous  telesteria,  and  pilasters  of  the 
great  temple  of  Megaron,  were,  by  the  outcasts,  only  to  be 
gazed  upon  and  marveled  at  from  a  distance.  The  Calliades 
who  inherited  the  priesthood  were  all  of  noble  blood.  The 
common  rabble  might  get  into  the  caravan  and  through  the 
dust  and  din  march  unobserved  from  Athens  to  Eleusis. 
They  might,  as  in  the  procession  of  our  modern  camp¬ 
meeting,  become  inspired  with  the  occasion  and  imbued 
with  the  frenzy  of  faith,  or  even  dare  to  picture  themselves 
worthy  to  participate.  But  the  order  of  such  a  man’s  rank 
was  soon  manifestsd  by  the  missiles,  hisses,  jeers  and  attacks 
against  the  throng,  himself  included,  by  his  own  people  who 
gathered  on  the  wayside  and  threw  derision  and  vented 
spite  in  turbulence  and  often  force  against  all  the  crusaders 
alike.  On  his  arrival  his  case  became  hopeless,  for  a  rigid 
examination  by  officers  of  the  law  soon  detected  his  meaner 
rank  and  caused  his  expulsion.  None  but  the  darlings  of 
the  family  constituted  gentea  were  deemed  fit  for  admission 
to  the  holy  altar. 

We  mean  by  this  that  the  working  man  was  too  low  in 
the  estimation  of  the  devotees  of  the  Pagan  temple  to  be 
the  possessor  of  an  immortal  soul.84  Now  let  the  questioner 

24  Plato,  Laws,  vi ;  Homer,  Odessey .  XVII.  c.  322,  323 ;  Horace,  Sermo,  I 
The  ancient  idea  was  that  those  who  failed  to  get  through  the  flat  earth  from 
this,  the  mortal  side,  to  the  other  which  was  heaven,  Elysium,  perished.  Plato 
the  great  idealist  wrote  (Gorgias,  168  73 ;  Phcedo ,  77,  139;  Rep.  c  13),  several 
Intensely  interesting  details  on  the  wahderings  and  gropings  of  the  Boal  on  whose 
waxen  tablet  is  indelibly  stamped  virtues  and  sins  for  Khadamanthas  and  th« 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


consider  that  these  outcasts  were  human  beings  of  the  same 
natural  stock,  against  whom  natural  laws  of  heredity  had 
made  no  discrimination;  that  they  were  as  bright,  as  clear, 
as  conscious,  as  well  developed  and  intelligent  as  their  mas¬ 
ters,  were  often  their  masters’  children  ;  that  they  some¬ 
times  rose  supremely  to  eminence  despite  the  pitiless  con¬ 
tempt  and  mountain-like  obstacles  they  had  to  contend  with 
— let  the  objector  observe  these  things  in  a  practical  way 
and  he  will  be  furnished  a  true  key  to  one  cause  of  the  dis¬ 
satisfaction  and  counter  organization  of  laborers  of  ancient 
times,  for  securing  a  court  that  might  hear  their  appeals. 
The  world  at  that  period  was  divided  into  two  classes,  the 
pious  and  the  impious,26  which  means  the  nobles,  born  of  the 

gods  and  entitled  to  go  back  to  the  gods,  and  the  earth- 
orns,  doomed  to  delve  for  their  masters  and  at  death  go 
back  to  the  earth.  But  although  this  was  recognized  as  an 
old  belief  coming  from  the  institution  of  slavery  in  which 
the  most  liberal  of  men  could  only  acknowledge  them  to 
be  more  than  half  furnished  with  an  immortal  principle, 26 
yet  the  intelligence  of  the  outcasts  rebelled  against  it. 
Would  not  men  under  such  circumstances  naturally  consider 
this  a  great  grievance  ?  In  our  own  times,  when  all  men 
are  admitted  to  be  born  equal — times  compared  with  those 
old  days  being  as  the  dazzle  of  noonday  to  the  obscurity  of 
morning  twilight — in  our  own  free  civilization  the  working 
people  combine  upon  economic  issues,  their  equality  of 
right  to  heaven  unquestioned;  but  those  people  imagined 
themselves  suffering  a  humiliating  grievance  when  the 
haughty  disclaimer  was  flung  into  their  face  that  they 
were  too  mean  to  expect  either  a  present  or  a  future.  If 
then,  they  gnashed  with  anguish,  or  even  vengeance  or  se¬ 
cretly  took  measures  to  get  even  with  this  oppression,  it 
was  but  an  effort  to  express  a  grievance. 

We  make  these  statements  to  show  why  in  ancient  times 
the  labor  movement  took  different  phases  from  these  we  see 
on  every  hand  about  us.  We  do  this  because  we  are  about 
to  bring  forward  proof  that  there  existed  an  opposition  to 


other  post  mortem  judges  to  examine.  Those,  each  as  slaves  supposed  to  have 
no  souls,  were  denied  even  a  burial.  They  were  burned. 

25  Consult  chapter  3  of  Granier’s  Hist,  des  Classes  Ouvribres ,  pp.  48-71.  The 
sritic  should  carefully  study  his  magnificent  array  of  notes. 

2«  Plato,  Laws,  ix.  half  a  soul ;  Tim,  xviii. ;  IxxL,  Homer,  Odessey,  lib  XVII ; 
Aristotle  declared  that  the  children  of  the  noble  masters,  w  ho  were  born  slaves' 
aonld  be  only  animated  beings. 


CLUES  OF  COMPARATIVE  TESTIMONY. 


97 


the  whole  philosophy  based  on  the  slave  code  and  to  the 
religion  that  denied  the  equality  of  man.  The  first  thing 
is  to  produce  proof  that  the  working  people  resented 
their  exclusion  from  the  Eleusinian  mysteries. 

To  do  this  it  will  be  necessary  to  indulge  in  a  little  cir¬ 
cumlocution,  as  the  evidence  is  very  vague  and  indirect.  It 
is  in  fact,  new  ground.  However  much  there  may  lie  con¬ 
cealed  in  support  of  this  important  fact  which  we  propose 
to  establish,  it  must  be  confessed  that  such  evidence  lies  in 
moldering  inappreciation  and  neglect.  Did  the  laboring 
or  outcast  element  of  that  ancient  era  resent  and  combine 
against  the  system  that  ignored  them  soul  and  body? 

We  have  proof  that  they  did ;  but  in  adducing  this  proof 
hold  claim  to  the  right  to  draw  inferences  from  the  exist¬ 
ence  and  career  of  as  many  different  forms  of  labor  and 
socialistic  organizations  as  we  can  hunt  out  from  the  gloom 
of  tyranny  and  oblivion.  With  this  range  of  the  whole 
field  assumed  to  be  conceded,  we  shall  produce  before  the 
critic  what  we  can  find  of  all  sorts  of  organizations  bearing 
upon  the  point,  and  where  the  link  of  evidence  becomes 
broken  in  the  chain  of  chronology,  shall  feel  perfectly  ex¬ 
onerated  for  drawing  upon  the  plausibly  imaginative  in 
order  to  restore  that  link.  The  fact  that,  as  an  anthropol¬ 
ogist  we  are  undertaking  to  write  a  history  of  ethics  from 
a  standpoint  of  sociology,  entitles  us  to  a  right  to  scientifi¬ 
cally  use  all  the  strategy  of  comparative  testimony.  By 
these  remarks  is  meant  the  trade  union,  the  co-operative  so¬ 
ciety,  the  burial  society,  the  society  for  social  amusement 
among  the  lowly,  the  agrarian  foment,  the  social  wars, 
even  to  some  extent  the  sophist  and  Pythagorean  social¬ 
ism,  the  ascetic  Essenianism  and  finally  the  grand  culmi¬ 
nation  of  all,  Christianity.  All  these  strictly  belong  to 
the  true  social  history  of  the  ancient  lowly;  for  all  their 
membership  was  originally  of  freedmen  and  slave  origin. 

In  order  to  answer  the  question  properly  it  is  necessary 
to  glance  a  moment  at  the  social  history  of  the  Grecian 
peninsula.  As  early  as  1055  B.  C.  there  had  been  a  hor¬ 
rible  murder  or  massacre  of  the  Helots  or  slaves  and  their 
descendants  at  Sparta.  It  was  in  the  mythical  ages ;  but 
great  events  even  among  the  poor  and  ignorant  have  a 
certain  faculty  of  transmitting  their  history  through  tradi¬ 
tion.  It  has  come  down  to  us  through  poetry  and  song, 


98 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


through  hints  of  ancient  history,  through  honest  Plutarch, 
and  we  are  assured  as  to  the  assassinations  which  were 
from  time  to  time  perpetrated  upon  the  defenseless  work¬ 
ing  people  of  that  time.  We  also  know  that  these  poor  crea¬ 
tures  who  were  to  the  body  politic  of  those  people  what  the 
bones  are  to  the  body,  had  unions  for  self  protection. 
Still  further  it  is  known  that  they  enjoyed  the  right  to 
organize.  It  has  been  ascertained  that  the  slaves  them¬ 
selves  actually  possessed  protective  societies2’  and  consid¬ 
ering  the  free  and  intelligent  classes  whence  they  were 
derived  it  is  quite  natural  that  they  should  have  possessed 
them.  Especially  is  this  possible  among  the  helots  or 
slaves  of  Lacedaemon.  They  were,  as  we  have  seen,  slaves 
by  inheritance,  often  their  wealthy  masters*  own  children. 
They  were  prisoners  of  war,  forcibly  reduced  to  that 
wretched  condition  by  being  beaten  in  the  war  with 
Helos  ;  and  later  in  the  great  Messenian  war,  when  Sparta 
became  the  victor  in  that  conflict,  those  brave,  proud,  in¬ 
genius  Greeks  along  with  all  of  the  two  above  mentioned 
classes,  were  humiliated,  subjugated,  degraded  to  the 

27  It  is  known  that  they  did  at  a  later  period ;  Cf.  Liiders,  Die  Dionysischen 
Kfinztler,  S.  22  &  47.  This  author  mentions  a  very  interest  ng  inscription 
(Bockh,  Corpus  Infer  ip  tionum  Grcecarum.  I.  p.  417),  that  lias  come  to  lLht, 
at  or  near  Pergamus,  which  shows  that  slaves  belonged  to  the  eranoi  or  union 
of  mechanics.  On  page  46,  Liiders  says  “Bezeichnend  fiir  den  Charakter 
des  Vereinswesens  der  spateren  Zeit  ist  es,  dafs  auch  Sclaven  nicht  allein 
an  einem  Eranos  sich  betheiligen,  sondern  auchunter  sich  ein  religiose*  Col¬ 
legium  mit  Unterstiitzungscasse  bilden  druften.  Fiir  den  von  Sclaven  benutz- 
ten  Eranos  bieten  zablreiche  Beispiele  die  unlangst  in  Delphi  ge  undenen 
Freilassungsurkunden.  Das  Collegium  Rhodischer  Sclaven  zu  Ehren  des 
Zeus  Atabyrios  (Aio?  ’Ara/SapiairTai  7(ov  ras  jtoAios  Sov\<av”).  So  also  in  p.  47, 
Liiders  further  corroborates  the  facts  that  slaves  belonged  to  the  unions:  ”Dass 
ab<  r  Vereine  von  einiger  Bedeutung  auch  Sclaven  zur  Bedienuna  hatten,  ist 
natiirlich;  Kraton  hatte  als  Prie-ter  des  von  ihm  gestifteten  Collegiums  der 
Attalisten  testamentarisc*'  xlem  Thiasos  unter  anderem  Tempel-  nnd  Haus- 
gerath  auch  Sclaven  vermacht.  Auf  den  Reliefs  aus  Nicaa  haben  w  r  in  den 
nm  das  Mahl  bes  liaftigten  und  in  den  Mnsicirenden  Personen  Sclaven  er- 
kannt.”  On  page  22,  Liiders  has  already  mentioned  this  Kraton,  in  proof  of 
the  membership  as  slaves:  “Kraton,  giinstling  der  Attalen  und  hochansre- 
sehnes  M  tglied  und  Priester  der  grossen  Synodus  Dionysischer  Techniten  in 
Teos,  hatte  nach  seiner  glazenden  Aufnahme  an  dem  Hofe  von  Pergemos  dort 
aus  dem  Verbande  derKiinstler  einen  Verein  von  Tliiasoten  zu  Ehreu  der 
Pervamenischen  Konige  gestiftet,  dessen  Mitglieder  sich  AttoAic rrai  nennen.” 
Farther  on  in  he  same  page,  he  shows  that  Kraton  made  the  union  a  present 
of  his  own  slaves  when  he  died;  probably,  as  Foucart  shows  that  they  some¬ 
times  did,  (Mem.  sur  I’affranchissement  des  esclaves  par  forme  de  vente  a  une  divinity 
p.  28),  m  order  to  set  them  free.  “In  seinem  Testamente  endlich.  von  dem 
uns,  so  wie  von  jenem  Briefe,  ein  Fragment  erhalten  ist,  verm a<  ht  er  dem 
verbande  eine  ansehnli  he  Geldsumme,  damit  sie  aus  den  Zinsen  ihre  Op- 
fer  und  lestlichen  Znsammenkiinfte  bestritten  den  Statuten  gemafs 
iv  TTi  vo/xodecria  npos  eKaaru)!'  SiaTeTa\ev).  Das  Mobiliar  des  Verein  hausi  S,  da* 
Geschirr  zu  den  Opfern  und  Mahlzeiten  und  der  feierlichen  Pompe,  da-  in 
dem  erhaltenen  Theile  des  Testament  aufgeziihlt  wird,  hinterliess  er  dem 
Verein  nebst  einer  Anzahl  Sclaven  zu  dauerndem  Bbsitz. 


PROOF  THAT  SLAVES  WERE  ORGANIZED.  99 


same  servile  condition.  But  although  the  body  was 
bowed  down  to  servitude,  the  mind  remained  to  play  its 
fancies,  to  plot  and  plan,  to  concoct  in  secret;  and  lan¬ 
guage  was  also  theirs — a  facile  tongue — rich  in  versatility 
of  idiom;  full  of  thrilling  nuance  and  touching  charm. 
The  powerful  physique  was  tbere,  the  love  of  adventure, 
the  Greek  cravings  for  a  better  lot,  with  fortitude,  dash 
and  intrepidity  which  form  the  gallant  characteristics  of 
that  grand  people — all  these  the  workingmen  of  high  an¬ 
tiquity  possessed.  More  than  this,  they  had  intelligence 
enough  to  know  that  the  cruelties  they  suffered  were  un¬ 
just.  If  then,  we  hear  through  the  scintillations  of  the 
fragments  that  there  were  uprisings,  social  turmoils  and 
wars,  we  know  them  to  have  been  the  natural  outcome  of 
such  a  state  of  things,  and  nothing  to  be  wondered  at. 

N  ow  we  have  promised  to  adduce  proof  that  there  were 
unions  of  Greeks  who  resisted  the  public  insult  of  the 
great  Eleusinian  mysteries  which  denied  to  the  slaves  and 
their  descendants,  the  freedmen,  all  hope  of  happiness 
here  and  hereafter.28  We  simply  desire,  in  order  to  clear 
up  the  vagaries,  to  consider,  in  our  inquiry,  the  whole  of 
Greece  at  a  time. 

Scanning  the  social  condition  of  the  slaves  from  evidence, 
we  find  plenty  of  assurance  that  they  belonged  to  the 
state.  The  state  leased  them  out.  The  state,  from  the 
primitive  family,  was  organized  for  purposes  of  defense.2* 
The  family  first  possessed  the  slave.  Slaves  became  more 
numerous  than  families.  They  did  all  the  labor  and  were 
allowed  no  privileges.  So  they  rebelled.  Some  ran  away, 
hid  in  fastnesses,  became  dangerous  brigands.  They  be¬ 
came  organized.  Then  the  rich  families  organized  them¬ 
selves  into  fratries  and  other  forms.  As  the  slaves  had 
belonged  to  the  families,  so  now  they  belonged  to  the  fra¬ 
tries.  This  means  that  as  the  slaves  were  before  private 
property,  so  now  they,  or  some  of  them,  became  public 


28  Plutarch,  Theseus,  speaks  of  the  demagogue  Menestheus  who,  about  1180 
before  Christ  rose  up  against  the  tyranny  of  the  aristocrats  at  Athens,  with  the 
claim  that  the  people  also  had  a  right  to  be  initiated  into  the  Eleusinian  myster¬ 
ies.  Even  at  that  remote  periocfthere  must  have  been  between  the  poor  and 
lowly  and  the  rich  and  lordly,  great  struggles  regarding  this  grievance. 

29  Morgan.  Ancient  Society,  chap,  ii  :  Drumann,  Arbeiter  und  Communislen 
in  GHeclientand  und  Rom ,  S.  24;  “In  Epidamnis  gab  es  keine  Hanwerker  als  die 
ofTentlichen  Sklaven.”  ;  “Das  Handwork  ist  daher  verrufen  und  verachtet,”  Sl 
26;  Aristotle,  Politic,  ii.  4,  §  13. 


too 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


property,  This  was  a  political  sequence  upon  the  organ¬ 
ization  of  the  families  into  fratries  and  the  consolidation 
of  the  fratries  into  the  state.  Of  course  the  rich  family 
still  kept  as  many  servants  as  it  needed;  but  large  num¬ 
bers  remained  with  the  public  domain.  These  state  slaves 
formed  into  organizations.30  From  the  earliest  mythical 
accounts  down  to  58  years  before  Christ  we  find  evidences 
abundantly  proving  that  the  law  gave  work-people  the 
especial  right  to  organize  not  only  in  Rome  but  also  in 
Greece.  The  celebrated  Law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  which 
specified  the  manner  of  organization  of  workingmen,  is 
declared  by  the  commentators  to  be  a  translation  from  the 
Greek  laws  of  Solon.81 

The  Twelve  Tables  clearly  set  down  the  arrangement, 
ordaining  that  the  trade  unions  should  remain  in  obedi¬ 
ence  to  the  law  of  the  state.  The  unions  fellow,  d  the  law, 
and  Gaiiis  wrote  the  law  thus  fixed,  so  plainly  that  J usti- 
nian  incorporated  it  into  the  digest.  A  fragment  of  the 
law  of  Solon 32  shows  plainly  that  trades  unions  were  com¬ 
mon  and  tolerated  by  that  lawgiver.  A  strong  cumulative 
evidence  that  the  slaves  belonging  to  the  state  were  enor¬ 
mously  organized  into  protective  association,  is  found  in 
the  fact  that  they  succeeded  in  their  insurrections  against 
the  masters.  An  important  example  of  these  slave  in¬ 
surrections  is  given  of  the  miners.83  In  Attica  they  once 
rebelled,  and  marched  upon  the  town  near  the  silver 
mines,  occupying  the  castle  of  Sunion.  These  people 
were  called  “  tlietes”  or  “ demoes .” 

In  Athens  the  fact  of  their  manumission  did  not  make 
them  anything  above  mere  earth-borns.  They  could  de¬ 
velop  genius,  become  teachers,  philosophers,  poets  and 
bus., mss  men.  Sometimes  they  rose  to  positions  of  wealth, 
even  themselves  becoming  master-builders,  and  some  of 
them  were  the  greatest  sculptors  and  painters  the  world 
ever  produced;  but  the  taint  of  servility  was  born  in  their 
blood.  Phidias  the  most  celebrated  sculptor,  ancient 
or  modern,  was  a  descendant  of  the  slaves.  He  was 

soLlldere,  Dionyschischen  Kunstler.  S.  46;  Wescher-Foucart  Inscriptions  da 
Delphes,  pp  S9,  107,  139,  244,  giving  abundant  evidence 

si  Gains,  Digest,  lib  XLVII.  tit.  xsii  leg.  4;  Plutarch,  Numa 

32  Granier,  Histoire  des  Clssses  Ouvribres  <£c  pp.  283-7. 

33 Consult  the  E  ncyclopedias,  Articles  on  Slavery  ;  also  for  instances  of 
Asiatic  slaves  joining  the  rebellion  of  Aristonicus,  see  Infra,  chapter  ix. 


GENIUS  OF  THE  FOREFATHERS. 


101 


really  a  freedman.  He  built  the  propylae  of  the  Parthe¬ 
non,  and  with  his  skillful  hand  made  the  beautiful  and  co¬ 
lossal  statues  of  Athena  and  the  wonderful  chryselephan¬ 
tine  statue  of  the  Olympian  Zeus.  Parrhasius,  one  of  the 
finest  painters,  who  transmitted  to  the  Italian  schools  the 
art  of  delineations,  was,  in  all  probability  a  freedman. 
Demosthenes  in  his  terrible  vehemence  pronounced 
.ZEschines  a  son  of  a  freedman.  That  alone  probably  had 
a  strong  tendency  toward  deciding  the  great  case  against 
iEschines,  whose  mighty  genius,  though  the  outcome  of 
lowly  parentage,  well-nigh  brought  to  the  scaffold  the 
greatest  orator  of  ancient  or  modern  days.  In  these 
bright  years  of  our  nineteenth  century,  such  scurrile  slurs 
as  Demosthenes  hurled  against  his  enemy,  which  were 
used  to  incite  contempt,  would  be  thought  an  insult  upon 
the  act  of  labor.  Innumerable  were  the  marvels  of  genius 
among  the  Greeks,  and  as  innumerable  the  deprecatory 
innuendoes,  the  cowardly  jealousies,  the  surreptitious  re¬ 
venges  that  were  seated  and  sealed  in  the  accident  of 
birth.  Much  of  the  greater  and  lesser  broils  may  be  at¬ 
tributed  to  it. 

Our  object  in  this  divergence  is  to  give,  from  a  reading  of 
the  past,  in  the  spirit  of  sociological  research,  the  fact  that 
the  lowly  of  the  Greek  population  were  organized  to  a  large 
extent,  against  this  scathing  grievance,  the  taint  of  labor. 

That  the  slaves  belonged  in  great  numbers  to  the  state 
is  seen  by  any  one  who  consults  the  law  of  Lycurgus.84 
It  must  be  most  distinctly  understood  that  the  great  law 
of  Lycurgus  was  intended  only  for  the  development  and 
enjoyment  of  the  two  favored  classes  of  Lacedaemonian 
society — the  Spartans  and  Periceci.  He  belonged  to  the 
Eurystheneid  line  of  Spartan  kings.  An  aristocrat  by 
birth  and  according  to  Herodotus,  living  about  a  thous¬ 
and  years  before  our  era,  he  would  not  permit  the  third 
class  or  working  people  even  to  taste  of  the  advantages 
of  his  system — otherwise  almost  a  perfect  socialism  if  we 
except  its  heathenish  immodesty  and  blood-thirst.  The 
land  he  divided  into  9,000  lots  for  the  Spartans  who  were 

MPlutarcn,  Lycurgus ;  “It  is  not  worth  while  to  take  much  painias  to  riches 
since  (hey  are  of  no  account;  ami  the  Helots  (slaves)  who  tilled  the  ground, 
were  answerable  for  the  produce  mentioned  5  And  a  few  lines  farther  on:  “So 
much  ben<  a  h  them  they  estimated  every  thought  of  mechanic  arts  as  well  as 
wish  for  ricties.’’ 


102 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


fewest  in  numbers,  30,000  lots  for  the  Periceci  or  Laconic 
ans  who  were  more  numerous  in  proportion.  The  poor 
Helots  or  work-people  and  descendants  from  slaves  got 
nothing  although  their  proportionate  numbers  were  three 
to  one.  This  hegemony  of  Greece  incorporated  into  it¬ 
self  the  most  degrading  slavery  to  be  found  in  the  world’s 
history.  Lycurgus  although  to  his  favorite  people  per¬ 
haps  in  many  respects  a  model,  was  towards  those  he  ar¬ 
rogantly  assumed  to  be  beneath  him — the  laboring  class — 
the  model  of  a  monster.  His  system  of  the  ambuscade  “ 
disgusted  even  Plato,  who  was  a  believer  in  slavery. 
Plato’s  great  heart  turned  away  in  loathing  from  such  a 
stupendous  abomination.  The  ambuscade,  a  diabolism 
that  should  blacken  any  age,  could  exist  only  in  a  country 
where  calm,  cold-blooded  contempt  gets  the  better  of  the 
warmer  emotions.  In  looking  over  the  lofty  but  ghastly 
eloquence  of  Cicero,  whose  implacable  contempt  for  the 
working  people  in  later  times  cost  him  his  life,  we  have 
the  nearest  parallel  to  inveterate  hate. 

No  historigrapher  can  hereafter  afford  to  neglect  the 
inhuman  butcheries  perpetrated  by  the  ambuscade ;  since 
they  differed  from  the  massacres  of  Stone  Henge,  of  Saint 
Bartholomew,  of  the  Incas,  of  the  Mamelukes,  of  Wyoming, 
in  being  consummated  at  moments  of  profoundest  peace ; 
at  moments  when  the  innocent  victims  were  wrapt  in  the 
fiendish  assassins’  service,  sweating  in  the  fields,  at  the 
mill,  with  the  flocks,  on  the  provision  market,  producing, 
garnering  and  distributing  the  food,  the  clothing,  the 
shelter  which  their  heartless  butchers  were  consuming 
without  gratitude,  to  invigorate  their  veins  whereby  to 
accomplish  such  treacheries ! 

Just  before  reciting  these  horrors  let  us  revert  to  the 
victim.  He  was  primarily  the  slave  by  the  ancient  family 
law  of  entail  and  primogeniture.  The  shackles  of  abject 
servitude  were  first  inherited  through  the  humiliating  law 
of  entails  which  fixed  the  heir  of  the  patrimony,  the  first 
born  son,  as  a  lord  to  be  served,  worshiped,  immortalized, 
and  blessed;  his  children  to  be  chattels,  subjected,  forced 
to  labor,  distrusted,  branded  and  cursed." 

35  For  more  on  the  Cfryptia,  eee  Plutarch,  Lycurgut. 

ae  Fustel  de  Coulanges,  Cite  Antique,  tivre  2,  La  J-'amUU  ;  Otmaigr  4*  Gtofc* 
tgnac.  Histloire  ties  Classes  Ouvri'eres,  chap  3, 


FLOGGED  ONCE  A  DAY 


103 


Next,  after  this  primary  calamity  came  the  slaves  of  war; 
whole  communities  taken,  carried  off  by  the  captors  and 
degraded  to  slavery  and  its  concomitant  curse,37  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Messenian  war  with  Sparta.  Lastly  the  slave 
trade; — three  great  ancient  systems.  Under  these  he 
suffered  torments  which  no  pen  of  mortal  will  ever  por¬ 
tray.  He  was  known  by  his  dress,  sometimes  going  in 
rags  equivalent  to  nudity,  in  gangs  under  a  brutal  boss. 
Sometimes,  in  this  condition,  man  along  with  woman, 
destitute  of  means  of  being  decent,  dragging  the  long 
day  among  the  fields  and  flocks ;  dogskin  hats  and  sheep¬ 
skin  breeches,  which  survive  longest  the  wear  of  the 
wearer,  and  often  totally  nude.  They  were  each  flogged 
once  a  day  as  an  admonition,  though  having  committed 
no  offence  and  forbidden  to  learn  the  manly  arts.  They 
were  obliged  to  stoop  and  crouch  in  piteous  obsequious¬ 
ness  to  these  drivers  lest  jealous  tyranny  interpret  their 
upright  posture  to  be  an  assumption  of  the  estate  of  man¬ 
hood.88  Such  was  the  condition  of  the  workingman  of 
Sparta  which,  above  all  other  countries  whereof  we  dis¬ 
cover  a  historic  trace,  was  the  most  pitiless  toward  the 
slave.  And  the  most  shameful  phase  of  this  confession  is 
the  cruel  fact  that  all  this  was  precept  of  the  Lycurgan 
law! 

We  must  return  to  the  cryptia  or  ambuscade  of  the  law 
of  Lycurgus.  These  Helots  or  working  people,  state-slaves 
of  Lacedaemon,  lived  and  performed  much  of  their  labor 
in  the  rural  districts.  The  law  of  Lycurgus  provided  for 
the  election,  annually,  of  five  magistrates  or  overseers, 
called  ephori,  whose  function  was  to  strengthen  and 
heighten  the  principles  of  democracy  that  the  happiness 
of  the  people  might  be  equalized.  Plutarch’s  doubts  as  to 
whether  Lycurgus  instituted  the  ephori  seem  to  be  dis¬ 
pelled  by  his  acknowledgment  that  both  Plato  and  Aris¬ 
totle  thought  so.89  One  of  the  functions  of  this  institu- 

JElian,  HUtoria  Varia.  I.  i. ;  Athenaeus.  Deipnosophistce.  vl ;  Xenophon 
Memorabilia ,  8,  6.  §  2  ;  Bticher.  Aufstdnde  der  unfreien  Arbeiter  S.  36  ;  All 
of  these  authors  also  Livy  give  evidence  on  the  enslavraent  of  men  taken  in  war, 

as  “The  Ephori  indeed,  declared  war  against  them!  Against  whom?  Why 
poor,  naked  slaves  who  tilled  their  lands,  dressed  their  food  and  did  all  those 
offices  for  them  which  they  were  too  proud  to  do  for  themselves.”  Cf.  Piutarch, 
Lycurgus ,  note  in  Laughome’s  tr. 

3»  Plato,  Republic ,  Dissertation  on  Lacedcemon;  Aristotle,  Politic ,  v.  ascribes 
their  origin  to  a  later  period  of  the  law’s  existence  than  that  of  the  1  awsriver'* 
'f.>t  hn  >.  Movertheless  they  are  the  outcome  of  the  great  law  of  Lycurgus. 


104 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


tion  for  the  promotion  of  popular  democracy  was  to  see 
that  the  ambuscade  was  well  carried  out.  All  that  was 
meant  by  the  term  people  was  the  people  who  owned  the 
land,  either  by  parcel  or  as  government  property  together 
with  the  slaves  and  other  chattels  of  that  property.  This 
means  that  the  really  worthless  and  indolent  non-pro¬ 
ducers  were  the  people.  The  useful  majority  of  the  in¬ 
habitants,  the  working  population,  were  entirely  ignored, 
contemptously  denied  every  vestige  of  participation  in 
this  much  boasted  government,  although  there  exists  abun¬ 
dance  of  evidence  that  they  were  naturally  intelligent  and 
as  worthy  as  their  masters,  of  enjoying  the  product  of 
their  labor  in  this  state  of  democracy. 

Instead  of  this,  the  ephori  ordained  that  a  certain  num¬ 
ber  of  young  men  from  among  the  aristocrats  should,  at 
their  command,  arm  themselves  with  daggers,  and  pro¬ 
vided  with  a  sort  of  knapsack  with  provisions,  secretly 
sneak  off  into  the  mountains  and  jungles.40  The  distances 
these  legalized  assassins  were  required  to  go  varied  very 
much.  These  youths  had  governors  who  had  the  power 
to  order  them  to  do  as  the  ephori  should  determine.  The 
governors,  whenever  the  ephori  voted  a  new  slaughter  ol 
the  working  people,  called  together  the  smartest  and  most 
able  bodied  of  these  young  men,  armed  them  with  dag¬ 
gers,  sharpened  and  gleaming  for  the  occasion."  At  the 
same  time  the  inhuman  overseers  whom  we  may  with  due 
propriety  call  bosses,  in  accord  with  a  technical  significa¬ 
tion  fully  adopted  by  the  prevailing  labor  movement  of 
to-day,  were  ordered  to  see  to  it  that  the  toilers  should 
be  without  arms  or  means  of  any  kind  with  which  to  de¬ 
fend  themselves  when  suddenly  set  upon  by  the  amateur 
Spartan  soldier,  dagger  in  hand.  With  all  these  odds 
against  them  the  poor,  unsuspecting,  half  naked  working 
people  were  driven  by  the  bosses,  as  usual  into  the  field, 
the  mill,  the  kitchen  and  the  various  places  of  service 
wherever  required  to  eke  the  drudgery  of  a  sun-and-sun 
summer  day  of  toil.  Meantime  the  assassins  were  laying 
in  wait  in  the  vicinity  for  their  prey.  It  was  a  manly 
sport!  The  law  of  Lycurgus  made  more  compulsory 
than  any  other  code  on  earth,  the  provisions  of  manly 

<0  Plutarch  Lycurgus ,  whore  these  horror*  are  nUtai 

«  Thucydides.  Dc  BeUo  Peloponnesiaoo,  liber  IV.  80. 


THE  ASSASSINS'  SPORT. 


105 


gymnastics.  This  was  one  of  them.  It  was  sport!"  By 
the  exercise  of  this  manly  sport  the  youth’s  blood  flowed 
stronger,  his  muscles  grew,  his  body  waxed  athletic;  he 
digested  with  a  better  relish  the  food  his  blood-begrimed 
victim  had  in  the  morning  prepared  for  him  before  liis 
murderous  weapon  slashed  and  pierced  her  gentle  heart. 
We  quote  from  Plutarch.  No  one  ever  speaks  illy  of  Plu¬ 
tarch.  His  means  of  knowing  facts  were  better  than  ours, 
and  his  kind  nature  even  in  the  barbarous  age  in  which 
he  lived,  revolted  against  the  consistency  of  such  a  democ¬ 
racy.  He  says:4* 

“  The  governors  of  the  youth  ordered  the  shrewdest  of 
them  from  time  to  time  to  disperse  themselves  in  the 
country,  provided  only  with  daggers  and  some  necessary 
provisions.  In  the  day  time  they  hid  themselves  and  rested 
in  the  most  private  places  they  could  find ;  but  at  night 
they  sallied  out  into  the  roads  and  killed  all  the  Helots 
they  could  meet  with.  Nay,  sometimes  by  day,  they  fell 
upon  them  in  the  fields  and  murdered  the  ablest  and 
strongest  of  them.” 44 

These  are  specimens  of  authentic  history  of  the  lowly 
as  they  have  passed  through  a  transition  period  of  un¬ 
numbered  centuries,  from  abject  slavery  to  a  Christian 
democracy  which  recognizes  all  men  as  equal  and  provides 
for  them  precepts  for  equal  enjoyment.  But  before  quit¬ 
ting  these  chambers  of  cruelty  and  carnage  it  remains  our 
sad  duty  to  recount  what  modern  hisWinns  well  know, 
but  seldom  divulge — the  great  assassination.  It  happened 
during  the  Peloponnesian  war.  This  account  comes  from 
the  trusted  and  reliable  historian  Thucydides,  who  lived 
at  the  time  and  made  it  his  business  for  many  years  to 
keenly  observe  what  transpired,  during  that  long  and 
tedious  struggle  of  seven  and  twenty  years.  The  story  is 
briefly  told  by  him.  Dressed  and  reflected  upon  in  our 
own  way  it  appears  in  substance  as  follows: 

During  the  great  Peloponnesian  war,  one  of  the  most 
renowned  in  antiquity,  the  forces  of  the  army  sometimes 
became  decimated  and  it  was  necessary  to  recruit  them 

*» K.  O.  Mfiller  In  DU  Dorier,  denies  this ;  but  the  evidence  is  too  strong 
against  him.  Again,  Mllller’s  opinion  regarding  their  “aboriginal  descent”  has 
been  completely  overturned. 

«  Plutarch  s  Lycurgus. 

*<Idem;  Cf.  tr.  of  the  Langhornes  Vol  T.  op.  63  4. 


106 


THE  MYSTERIES l 


from  whatever  source  possible.  When,  therefore,  there 
were  no  more  soldiers  to  be  had  from  among  the  Spartans 
and  Perioeci  or  recognized  citizens,  the  military  authori¬ 
ties  were  obliged  to  call  out  the  laboring  men  who,  at  the 
time  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  were  three  to  four  times 
more  numerous  than  the  non-laboring  class.  This  in  an¬ 
cient  times  was  always  a  humiliation.  W ar  was  the  noble 
occupation,  labor  the  ignoble  one.  To  ask  a  person  in 
disgrace  to  assist  the  nobles  out  of  trouble  was  equivalent 
to  humiliating  confession.  If  then,  the  laborer,  in  a  great 
emergency  was  marshaled  to  the  rescue,  the  only  way  to 
blot  out  the  stain  such  a  humiliation  entailed  was  to  en¬ 
franchize  this  warrior  from  social  thraldom  and  thus 
stanch  the  blot  by  elevating  him  from  the  fetters  of  bond¬ 
age.  If  further,  the  bondsman  after  performing  the  ser¬ 
vice  manfully,  redeeming  his  masters  by  bravery  and  valor, 
earning  his  liberty  by  saving  their  lives  and  preserving 
their  realm  from  wreck,  could  be  secretly  murdered  after 
such  decree  of  manumission  was  administered,  it  would 
save  the  proud  masters  many  a  disagreeable  jeer,  painful 
wince  and  blush  of  shame  when  reminded  that  their  ex¬ 
istence  and  happiness  was  due  to  the  daring  and  fidelity 
of  a  hated  menial  who  still  shocked  their  pride  with  his 
presence. 

It  came  to  pass  that  this  humiliating  expedient  was  in- 
dispensible  to  save  the  nation  from  irretrievable  ruin  and 
thousands  of  the  enslaved  laborers  were  marshaled  and 
drilled  into  the  army.  They  were  not  allowed  to  bear 
heavy  arms;  that  would  have  been  a  still  greater  disgrace. 
So  they  bore  light  arms  and  bore  them  gallantly.  After 
serving  through  many  a  tedious  campaign  probably  of 
years’  duration,  after  winning  victories  in  many  a  skirm¬ 
ish  and  in  many  a  field  and  earning  the  full  measure  of  their 
promised  reward,  after  seeing  the  Lacedaemonian  armies 
victorious  at  every  hand  and  the  great  war  prosperously 
advancing  toward  triumph  for  the  southern  Greeks,  there 
were  brought  before  the  military  tribunal  for  dismissal 
over  two  thousand  workingmen  who  had  proved  truest 
in  arms  and  been  adjudged  worthiest  of  liberty.  Their 
faithful  hands  had  valiantly  borne  the  standard  of  an  un¬ 
grateful  country.  Their  strong  hearts  had  never  flinched 
either  before  their  sullen  discipline  or  the  cleaving  blades 


MURDER  OF  2,000  FIELD-HANDS 


107 


of  the  combatants.  Their  fiery  zeal  and  fearless  blows 
had  won  the  victory  and  earned  the  liberty  which,  before 
this  august  council,  proudly  they  heard  pronounced.  Over 
2,000  slaves  who  toiled  for  masters  were  thus  regularly 
enfranchised  and  marched  into  a  temple  or  other  enclo¬ 
sure  or  field — no  mortal  knows  or  ever  will  know  what — 
to  take  the  oath  of  freedom. 

But  the  anxious  wives  and  children  waited  and  wept 
long  before  these  brave  men  came  to  gladden  their  hovel 
homes.  For  here  we  come  to  the  recital  of  one  of  the 
darkest  pages  of  history.  Still  more  painful  is  this  page 
because  blotted.  Too  foully  blotted  for  perusal ;  since, 
aside  from  a  ghastly  blood-stain  that  smirches  its  story  in 
mysterious  gloom,  it  is  written  in  the  almost  undecipher¬ 
able  hieroglyphs  of  reticent  shame.  Thucydides  blushes 
for  this  lurid  page ; 45  but  unlike  the  unmanly  historians  of 
the  past  who  have  cringed  in  the  presence  of  truth  which 
could  not  port  the  flattery  of  lords  and  masters  of  high 
degree,  he  bravely  told  us  all  he  knew.  And  what  he 
knew  is  enough  to  make  the  blood  run  cold.46  Besides, 
it  comes  to  us  subscribed  to  by  Plato,47  Aristotle48  and 
Plutarch,49  on  whose  minds,  if  we  catch  aright  their  words, 
this  massacre  we  are  going  to  relate  made  an  impression 
bo  strong  as  to  waver  the  tone  of  these  great  philosophers’ 
belief  in  slavery 47  and  seriously  color  their  dialectics. 


«  Thucydides  during  the  Peloponnesian  war  for  the  hegemony  of  Greece, 
commanded  a  division  of  the  Athenian  marine  force ;  but  being  out-generaled 
at  Amphipolis  by  Braidas  went  for  twenty  years  into  exile  and  du  ring  that 
time  used  his  wealth  and  talent  writing  the  celebrated  history  which  has 

come  down  to  us. 

46  Thucydides,  De  Bello  Peloponnesiaco,  liber  IV.  cap.  80.  “Kal  S.pa  twi/ 
EiAwTcij/  /SovAopeVois  Tjv  «ttI  irpo<$>d<ret  eKnep\ljait  prj  ti  7rpos  ra  napovra  rijs  IIvAov 
«X°MeVjjs  ^'ec^>T<fpc<^w(Ttl/,  iirel  Kai  Tofie  enpafeav,  (f>o flovpevot  avriov  rrjv  veorrjTa  Kai 
to  v\y0os  (del  vap  ra  7roAAd  Aa/ceSaipoiaot?  7rpos  rows  ElAwras  rfjs  <f>v\a Krjs  nepi 
paAtara  Ka0e<^TJ}K€l)•  npoetnov  avruv  o<roi  a£tovotv  ev  rols  woAejuiois  yeyevqada 
<r<f>l<riv  aptoroi,  Kptveadat,  u>s  eAevDepcoaovres,  iretpav  noi.ovp.evot  Kai  riyovpevot 
tovtovs  aiptatv  virb  (f>povrjpaTOi,  o'inep  Kai  ij£uo<rav  irpSiros  e/cacrros  eAvdepovadai 
pdAtara  av  Kai  entdecrdat.  Kal  irpoKpivavres  is  bur^iAiovs  oi  pev  icrre^avijjaavTo 
r«  Kal  ra  iepa  ireptriAOov  <!>s  i)Aev6epopevoi-  Oi  be  ov  iroAAy  vartpov  r)<j)dvtadv 
T«  avrovs  Kai  oi)8eis  -qaOeTO  or<f  rpontp  tKaaros  5ie<f>dapij.M 

47  Plato,  De  Republica,  Dissertation  on  Model  State. 

48  Aristotle,  Politic,  V. 

49  Plutarch,  Lycurgus,  cap.  28.  This  massacre  occurred  under  Brasidas, 
in  B.  C.  424.  iElian,  Hlstoria  Varia,  I.  1,  says  that  in  Greece  the  supersti¬ 
tious  belief  everywhere  prevailed  that  these  cruelties  to  the  poor  slaves  caused 
a  judgment  from  heaven  upon  the  Spartans,  in  form  of  an  earthquake,  B.  C. 
467,  by  which  20,000  people  lost  their  lives.  This  must  have  been  before  the 
massacre  described  and  proves  the  frequency  of  those  horrible  deeds  of  the 
Ephori  and  their  tutored  and  organized  assassins.  For  later  comments  on  this 
earthquake  at  Sparta  and  the  superstitious  terrors  believed  to  come  from  their 
cruelty  to  slaves,  see  McCullagh,  Industrial  History  of  Free  Nations,  I.  p.  6. 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


lot 

This  much  is  known  that  during  the  time  these  2,000 
or  more  soldiers  were  going  through  the  ordeal  of  being 
garlanded,  crowned,  distinguished  and  conducted  to  the 
temple  of  the  gods  to  receive  their  first  beatitude,  their 
blessing  and  reward  for  bravery,  the  ephori  were  busily 
and  secretly  making  out  a  declaration  of  war,  arming  the 
valorous  young  men  and  giving  them  instructions  to  crawl 
cat-like  upon  them  with  the  assassin’s  daggers  !  No  more 
is  known ;  for  here  the  page  is  torn  beyond  recovery.  But 
enough  is  known.  The  happy  braves  all  disappear  for¬ 
ever.  Naught  but  a  dark  and  spectral  mystery  broods 
over  this  page  of  history.  The  workingmen  had  received 
the  emoluments  of  their  hire  at  the  hand  of  an  assassin 
democracy ! 

The  careful  student  of  history  from  a  standpoint  of  so¬ 
cial  science  may  pick  up  evidence  that  to  some  extent  even 
the  Helots  were  organized.  Facts  continually  crop  out  in 
the  records  showing  that  these  degraded  doers  of  Spartan 
labor  under  the  law  of  Lycurgus,  unable  to  resist  the  ex¬ 
actions,  raised  insurrections  against  their  tormentors,  and 
that  thev  sometimes  got  the  better  of  them.  In  almost 
every  other  part  of  Greece  they  are  known  to  have  been 
organized  into  many  forms  of  associative  self-support  by 
which  they  were  able  to  command  more  respect.  We  re¬ 
turn  to  Athens. 

The  fact  must  not  be  lost  sight  of  that  at  Athens  as 
everywhere  among  the  Aryans,  there  were  two  distinct 
classes  by  birth — the  nobles,  claiming  to  be  descended 
from  the  gods,  and  the  earth -borns  who  went  back  to 
earth.  The  first  would  not  work  if  they  could  possibly 
avoid  it ;  at  least  this  may  be  said  of  the  men.  The  lat¬ 
ter  did  most  of  the  work ;  not  only  the  menial  drudgery 
but  the  skilled  labor  of  building  the  magnificent  temples 
and  other  public  edifices  whose  imposing  ruins  are  still  a 
wonder  of  the  now  living  age.  To  the  credit,  of  we  man 
in  high  life  be  it  said  that  sometimes  the  mater/ amilias 
spun  and  wove,  according  to  some  testimony  of  Plato. 
There  are  two  important  facts  to  be  considered:  In 
Greece,  Borne  and  elsewhere  in  Kurope  and  western  Asia, 
northern  Africa  and  the  islands,  the  working  people 
greatly  outnumbered  the  non-workers.  In  Greece  they 
wore  three  and  four  times  more  numerous.  Again,  they 


LAND  AND  WORK-HANDS  P  UBLIC  GOODS ,  109 


were  often  chatties  of  that  state.  The  land  belonged  to 
the  state  and  the  laborers  who  tilled  the  land  went  with 
it.  This  as  we  shall  see.  became  in  Italy,  under  the  gen¬ 
erous  laws  of  Numa,  a  great  benefit  for  them  which  they 
enjoyed  for  about  500  years.  In  Greece  the  land  also 
belonged  to  the  state  ;  but  the  cruel  law  of  Lycurgus 
which  was  instituted  1,000  years  before  Ciirist  and  held 
good,  as  Plutarch  tells  us  for  500  years,  treated  the  poor 
creatures  with  such  flagitious  absolutism  that  they  could 
never  enjoy  so  well  as  did  the  Roman  laborers,  the  boon 
of  their  own  organization. 

The  law  of  Lycurgus  was  pernicious  in  its  inculcation 
of  the  two  moral  elements  of  Plato ;  those  of  irascibility 
and  concupiscence  without  sympathy.  When  a  master 
owns  a  slave  from  whom  he  expects  to  receive  labor  pro¬ 
duct,  he  finds  it  for  his  own  advantage  to  treat  him  well; 
otherwise  he  would  not  receive  the  full  product  of  the 
man’s  labor;  but  when  the  land  belonged  to  the  state  and 
the  slaves  also,  this  personal  responsibility  was  smothered 
with  it.  Thus  hatred  and  contempt,  attributes  of  Plato’s 
irascible  impulse,  constituting  one  of  the  bases  of  moral 
philosophy,  were  for  ages  allowed  to  develope  in  the 
breast  of  the  Spartan.  Again,  concupiscence  or  desire, 
being  common  or  national  under  the  Lycurgan  law,  was 
averted  from  its  natural  competitive  corn’s e  by  a  commun¬ 
ism  of  gratification  without  responsibilities  and  a  commun¬ 
ism  of  participation;  and  these  with  idleness  and  all  the 
depravity  which  such  deteriorating  influences  entail,  low¬ 
ered  Spartan  morality  below  the  plain  of  sympathy.  This 
unfeeling  and  inhuman  condition  of  the  public  mind  be¬ 
came  a  natural  result  ultimately  destroying  the  otherwise 
unhindered  plan  of  Lycurgus. 

Had  the  law  of  Lycurgus  provided  for  absolute  equality 
of  all  men,  slave  and  noble  alike,  had  its  communism  ap¬ 
plied  to  all  on  exactly  equal  footing,  the  common  owner¬ 
ship  could  have  been  carried  out  by  the  state  with  greater 
general  happiness  and  all  the  cruelty  which  depraved 
Spartan  life  would  have  been  saved  to  the  credit  of  a  splen¬ 
did  people.  But  that  would  have  been  a  death  blow  to 
the  Pagan  religion,  itself  based  upon  egoism  and  possible 
only  under  a  s}rstem  of  lords  and  slaves.  Thus,  with  the 
exception  of  the  taint  of  labor  and  its  concomitant  wrongs 


110 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


to  the  human  race,  the  ancients  began  radically.  They 
began  by  having  the  family  egoism  of  the  primordial 
hearthstone — the  first  ownership — subdued  into  common 
ownership  of  land  and  even  of  children;  and  had  they 
banished  that  hideous  curse,  the  taint  of  labor  and  added 
to  their  other  and  truly  virtuous  methods  of  self  culture, 
the  enobling,  healthful  and  thrift-bearing  practice  of  im¬ 
partial  economical  labor  as  a  necessary  requisite  to  sanity 
and  wealth  they  would  have  taught  the  world  a  lesson 
of  advancement  instead  of  one  in  degeneracy  and  shame. 
The  same  must  be  said  of  Athens  and  the  other  Grecian 
states  except  that  none  of  them  are  known  to  have  been 
so  cruel  and  heartless  as  the  Spartans  under  the  Lycur- 
gan  law. 

We  have  thus  sufficiently  shown  the  grievance  borne 
by  the  ancient  working  people  inciting  and  goading  them 
to  organization.  It  now  remains  to  be  proved  that  the 
Greeks  of  this  class,  were  actually  in  a  substantial  state 
of  combination,  especially  the  Athenians,  during  the  ex¬ 
istence  of  the  Eleusmian  games  near  Athens;  a  point  which 
throughout  the  chapter  has  been  the  subject  in  kernel,  of 
our  inquiry.  This  substantiated,  we  have  a  startling  clue 
to  the  causes  from  a  sociological  standpoint,  of  two  histor¬ 
ical  phenomena:  the  social  wars  and  the  advent  of  our  era. 

Every  recent  investigation  reveals  fresh  slabs  or  drags 
from  the  depths  of  time,  earth  and  oblivion  something  in 
proof.  Dr.  Schliemann,  quotes  a  passage  of  Homer  which 
shows  an  explanation  comprehensible  to  us  in  no  other 
way  than  that  there  existed  an  understanding  at  that  an¬ 
cient  day,  between  the  lower  people.  A  peddler  came  to 
the  palace  with  a  gold  collar  set  with  amber  beads,  and 
Homer  sang  a  beautiful  verse  describing  the  knowing  look 
that  the  young  prince  saw  exchanged  between  the  man  and 
the  servant  woman  in  the  hall  while  the  queen  was  admir¬ 
ing  the  amber  necklace.60  These  were  the  nods  and  winks 

60  Schliemann,  Ttryns ;  The  Pre-historlc  Palace,  p.  868,  containing  the 
passage  from  Homer.  This  also  suggests  that  the  working  people,  including 
house  servants,  were  secretly  In  league  at  Mycen®  and  that  the  league  reached 
as  far  as  Phoenicia. 

r]\v0'  a i’ rip  jroAiuSpis  epov  npo c  5o6p.at.Ta  irarpos, 

Xpvaeov  bpp.ov  i\(t)v,  /xera  5’  rj A«/cr pour iv  iepro • 
rbv  p.iy  ap’  iv  p.e\apu>  Spatial  teal  jt orvoa  prj-njp 

JtpaLv  T  apaf>a4>o lavro,  <al  64>0a\pioZa’iv  opuiVTOy 
ror  vnii\6pitvaL‘  it  Si  rjj  Karivtvat  truoirp* 

$ret  o  Kav vev4Taf  Koi\r)V  iwl  vr)a 


GREAT  ANTIQUITY  OF  LABOR  UNIONS.  Ill 


of  the  secret  society  which  were  observed  but  could  not 
be  read  by  the  lad.  This  was  in  the  second  millennium 
before  Christ. 

Granier,  who  must  have  been  a  great  hunter  of  facts,  ob¬ 
serves  that  slavery  was  originally  of  the  family;  not  of  vio¬ 
lent  origin,81  precisely  what  Dr.  Fustel  de  Coulanges  has 
since  proved  beyond  refutation  of  the  most  probing  com¬ 
mentators  seeking  contrary  evidence.53  Of  course  history 
gives  ponderous  testimony  that  violence  was  a  source  of 
enslavement ;  but  that  was  not  the  origin.  When  our  era 
opened  it  brought  with  it  an  inestimable  boon;  a  pearl 
of  great  price ;  the  utter  extinction  of  social  class 68 — noth¬ 
ing  less  than  the  long  sought  revolution.  Dr.  Cliffe  Leslie 
in  an  introduction  to  M.  De  Laveleye’s  “  Primitive  Prop¬ 
erty,”  observing  the  progress  of  this  greatest  of  all  the 
revolutions  which  he  rightly  sees  is  yet  far  from  being 
realized  though  nearly  all  civilized  races  have  repudiated 
the  curse  of  slavery,  takes  the  entirely  correct  view  with 
regard  to  ownership  after  the  momentous  but  gradual 
revolution  is  past.64 

It  is  known  that  in  early  Greece  the  hetairai  and  the 
hetairoi  were  female  and  male  associates  of  the  laboring 
class,  and  that  they  had  their  legalized  association  for 
mutual  benefit.  From  very  early  times  they  used  their 
associations,  not  only  for  mutual  protection  against  op¬ 
pression  but  also  for  mutual  improvement  and  pleasure.66 

The  celebrated  jugglers  were  mostly  members  of  an  or¬ 
ganization  under  whose  auspices  they  used  their  jugglery 
ad  a  trade  wherewith  to  gain  a  living.  These  are  of  al¬ 
most  incredibly  ancient  origin  and  in  Greece  many  of  them 
were  descendants  of  Egyptian  slaves.  It  is  not  difficult  to 
prove  that  at  an  epoch  since  which  an  aeon  of  time  has 

si  HUtoire  des  Classic  OuvrtZres,  p.  83 :  **In  conclusion,  everything  leads  in 
the  plainest  manner  to  the  belief  that  slavery  had  no  other  beginning  than  that 
•l  Che  family  entailment  of  which  it  constituted  an  economic  part.’* 

$%La  Citt  Antique,  liv.  II.  chap.  vii.  pp.  76-89. 

“Paul,  Epistle  to  the  Gallalions,  chap.  iii.  verse  28;  “There  is  neither  Jew 
M  Greek,  there  is  neither  bond  nor  free,  there  is  neither  male  nor  female;  for 
ye  are  all  one  in  Jesus  Christ." 

*4  Primitive  Property ,  Introduction,  p.  xxi.  “The  owners  of  property  are  on 
fc~,e  eve  of  becoming  a  powerless  minority  ;  for  the  many,  to  whom  the  whole 
p<»wer  of  the  state  is  of  necessity  gravitating,  see  all  the  means  of  subsistence 
aid  enjoyment  afforded  by  nature  in  the  possession  of  the  few.”  Gliffe  Leslie. 

65  Guhl  and  Koner,  Life  of  the  Greelcs  and  Romans,  pp.  268-269,  showing 
Gkeek  customs  and  manners  at  a  symposion.  Other  evidence  testifies  to  there  be¬ 
ing  a  secret  organization  at  these  l'easts,which  conducted  the  ceremonies.  See 
also  Lttders,  DU  Dionytischen  Kumller,  passim. 


112 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


rolled  over  the  human  race,  those  jugglers  were  plying 
their  profession  the  same  as  at  a  much  later  era  in  which 
we  find  them  at  Athens.66  The  professional  business  of 
these  jugglers  and  tumblers  was  to  amuspthe  people;  and 
there  are  abundant  inscriptions  and  pictures  to  be  found 
on  vases  and  other  pieces  of  pottery  which  show  that  they 
worked  hard  to  earn  their  money.  These  were  specimens 
of  the  slave  system  which  marks  the  despotic  rule,  and  ex¬ 
isted  first.  All  remote  antiquity  bears  evidence,  in  pre¬ 
historic  inscriptions  and  inkings  of  different  nature,  of 
many  slaves,  and  that  labor  was  degraded.67  The  slaves 
being  first,  there  came  about  an  era  of  manumissions. 
Freedmen  entered  upon  the  scene  bearing  the  taint  of 
slave  labor  and  were  obliged  to  resort  to  all  sorts  of  in¬ 
dustry  and  wit  to  make  a  living ;  and  among  other  methods 
adopted  to  secure  that  end,  they  entered  into  mutual 
alliances  with  each  other  for  common  assistance  through 
trade  organizations.  There  were  great  numbers  also  of 
the  communia  mimorum 58  or  unions  of  comic  actors  who 
in  a  similar  manner  got  a  living  by  amusing  the  people. 
Strabo  speaks  of  them 69  and  Bockh  gives  the  Greek  of 
an  interesting  institution  of  this  kind.60  Mommsen  gives 
the  law  recorded  in  the  digest  from  Gaius,  which  after¬ 
wards  suppressed  most  of  these  societies.61 

A  curious  union  was  that  of  the  Urinatores ,  men  whose 
business  at  Rome  was  to  dive  in  the  Tiber  and  probably 

6«  “An  attempt  has  been  made  to  mathematically  measure  this  vast  eriod 
of  time  by  calculating  from  the  depth  of  mud  of  the  alluvial  Nile,  at  wh  ch  ob 
Jects  have  been  found,  by  L.  Horner,  on  The  Alluvial  Land  of  Egypt,  and  result*" 
published  in  the  Phil.  Transactions,  1858,  p.  75,  which  gives  12,000  years,  at  the 
assumed  rate  of  deposit  of  three  and  five  tenths  inches  per  100  years  at  Mem 
phis,  from  the  fragments  of  vases  found  70  feet  under  ground.”  Sir  Gardne* 
Wilkinson,  Ancient  Egyptians,  vol.  I.  pp.  8-9.,  note,  paraphrased. 

67 Cf.  Bancroft,  Native  Races,  vol.  IV.  Antiquities,  pp.  305-6,  showln  that  i 
the  remote  past  of  Central  America,  inscriptions  exhibiting  the  most  despotio 
conditions  were  produced,  probably  thousands  of  years  before  the  discovery  of 
the  present  nomadic  races  who  were  found  in  a  semi-communal  state.  At  Pr 
lenque  are  inscriptions  on  the  ancient  walls  showing  conditions  coeval  with  th< 
earliest  European  monarchism.  A  king  garbed  in  fine  military  attire,  and  the 
everlasting  slaves  on  bended  knees  and  in  humble  suppliance.  They  a  e  freely 
drawn,  with  art  superior  to  Egyptian,  being  in  has  reliefs,  in  stucco  on  the  wall' 
of  the  palace. 

ss  Mommsen,  De  Collegiis  et  Sodahciis  Romanorum.  p.  83;  “Commm  'a  mim¬ 
orum  Romanorum  et  in  nomina  et  in  institutis  ra  koiv a  t £>v  wtpi  rbv  ovvav 
TtviTuv  referunt,  qu®  apud  (ircecos  ampla  et  plurima  fuerunt.” 

69  Strabo,  Geographica,  X IV.  643,28. 

60  Corpus  Inscriptionum  Grcecarum ,  nos.  349  and  2931. 

si  Mommsen  ;  De  Coll,  et  Sodal.  Romanorum,  p.  84.  Great  numbers  of 
locieties  existed  about  the  Hellespont  and  among  the  Ionian  Islands. 


SOLON'S  LABOR  LAW8 . 


113 


also  into  the  public  baths  in  search  of  things  lost  by  the 
grandees  while  boating  or  bathing. 63  At  N aples,  Nice  and 
other  places  on  the  sea  these  divers  had  unions  and  no 
doubt  possessed  skilled  men  who  succeeded  in  restoring  the 
valuables  after  the  wrecks  of  triremes,  and  other  craft. 02 
Especially  were  these  unions  a  benefit  to  community  at  Sy¬ 
racuse,  the  Piraeus  and  Byzantium,  where  these  and  other 
unions  abounded  in  great  numbers.  Mommsen  on  the 
law  of  Solon  also  declares  that  there  were  both  sacred  and 
civil  communes,68  and  he  further  states  that  all  such  soci¬ 
eties  were  not  only  permitted,  but  they  possessed  at  that 
early  period  (B.  C.  600),  the  right  of  perpetual  organiza¬ 
tion.  The  probability  is  that  these  organizations  had  ex¬ 
isted  from  a  much  earlier  epoch  than  that  of  Solon ;  but 
having  never  done  any  harm  at  Athens  and  the  Athenians 
being  a  much  more  sympathic  people  than  the  Spartans, 
they  were  never  molested.  So  long  as  the  trade  unions 
of  the  world,  ancient  and  modern,  have  restricted  them¬ 
selves  to  mere  pleasure,  religion,  and  frugality,  they  do 
not  appear  to  have  been  harshly  dealt  with ;  but  so  soon 
as  they  ventured  to  consider  and  act  upon  the  subject  of 
politics,  which  of  all  others,  was  most  necessary  to  their 
welfare,  they  became  objects  of  hate  and  of  repression. 
Especially  was  this  the  case  in  ancient  times ;  because  pol¬ 
itics  like  war,  was  a  noble  calling.  Petty  frugality,  and 
crude  convivial,  as  well  as  burial  ordeals  were  too  trifling 
and  mean  in  the  eyes  of  the  nobles  to  attract  attention. 

There  was  at  Athens  a  class  of  public  servants.64  They 
were  not  real  slaves  although  public  property,  and  treated 
as  menials;  never  being  allowed  to  participate  in  the 
slightest  degree  in  the  principle  of  government  and  yet 
they  actually  performed  all  the  routine  labor  of  the  gov¬ 
ernment.  At  the  time  we  hear  of  them  through  public 
records  and  through  inadvertent  mention  by  historians, 
they  seem  to  resemble  freedmen.  They  received  a  small 
salary  to  keep  them  alive,  and  their  business  was  to  keep 

os  Orelllus,  In&criptionum  Latinarum  Selectarum  Ampllssima  Collectio,  No.  4115 : 

“Ti.  Claudio  Esquil.  Severo  Decuriali  lictore. . sportulas  viritim 

dividantur  praesertim  cum  navigatio  scapharum  diligentia  ejus  adquisita  et  con 
firmata  sit.  Ex  decreto  ordinis  corporis  piscatorum  et  urinatorum  totius  alvei 
Tiberis  quibus  ex  SC.  coire  licet.”  The  inscription  was  found  in  Rome. 

e3  ‘‘Notabilis  est  hoc  loco  lex  Solonis,  ex  qua  sacra  civiliaque  communia  non 
alio  jure  fuerunt  quam  quo  societates  ad  negotiationem  prreditionemve  const! 
tut®.”  Mommsen,  Dc  CoIIegils  et  SodaUc.Hn  Romanorum,  p.  39. 

6i  Consult  Dr.  Hermann,  Political  Antiquities  of  Greece,  paragraph  117, 


114 


TEE  MYSTERIES. 


the  books  and  do  the  various  duties  of  a  public  office  un¬ 
der  government. 

They  had  their  protective  unions.  Being  clerks,  and 
constantly  in  presence  of  polite  people,  they  made  a  gen¬ 
teel  appearance  and  were  apt  in  the  civilities  of  court. 
But  like  all  their  class  they  also  had  a  grievance.  They 
were  treated  as  menials  because  they  were  not  “blooded;” 
and  consequently  could  not  pit  their  natural  genius  and 
ability  against  that  of  their  masters  who  conducted  the 
public  offices  and  who  belonged  to  noble  stock.  “  It  was 
required  that  Archons  and  priests  should  prove  the  purity 
of  their  descent  as  citizens  for  three  generations.” 66  The 
business  of  the  Pagan  temple  was  a  part  of  the  state  af¬ 
fairs;  and  consequently  priests  in  those  times  were  pub¬ 
lic  officers.  Priests  were  politicians.  One  of  the  quali¬ 
fications  of  the  Archons  or  rulers  was  to  have  a  good  rec¬ 
ord  that  they  attended  to  religious  ceremonies.  Ostracism, 
banishment  and  death  were  among  the  punishme  nts  de¬ 
signated  by  the  law  for  neglecting  these  duties  of  citizen¬ 
ship;  and  the  least  whisper  against  any  of  the  gods  or  the 
regulations  of  the  Pagan  religion  was  blasphemy.  This 
explains  the  causes  of  that  great  difference  in  station 
which  existed  without  regard  to  the  business  qualifications 
of  the  men.  Smart  workingmen  without  rights,  or  any 
claim  to  rights,  were  often  required  on  a  mean  salary  to 
do  all  the  work  of  both  departments  of  governments  with¬ 
out  being  entitled  to  the  least  benefit  in  either,  while  a 
tyrant  and  sensualist  held  all  control  and  honor  like  some 
modern  sinecurists  of  our  offices.  There  is  evidence  that 
this  exclusivism  was  regarded  by  the  poor  workmen  as  a 
great  grievance;  but  their  exclusion  from  free  participa¬ 
tion  in  religious  rights  and  especially  from  membership  in 
and  access  to  the  Eleusinian  mysteries  was  the  greatest  one. 
Against  these  grievances  they  were  organized  in  secret. 

Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  mentions  a  society  of  the 
Thiasotes  or  Greek  labor  unions,  the  members  of  which 
had  for  their  patron  deity  the  goddess  Minerva  through 
the  noble  family  of  the  N  autii,  who  brought  the  image  of 
Minerva  away  from  the  Trojans  to  Italy.68  Here  it  ap¬ 


es  Idem,  §.  148.  The  Soxi/ua <xCa,  or  scrutiny  Into  the  antecedante  of  candi¬ 
dates,  is  here  explained. 

Sf.  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  Antiquitates  Romana,  VI.  69. 


REMOTELY  ANCIENT  STRIKE  AND  MASSACRE.  115 


pears  that  the  union  was  not  permitted  to  worship  their 
goddess  directly  hut  had  to  approach  her  through  a  noble 
family.  By  worshiping  the  borrowed  proxy  they  got  ac¬ 
cess  indirectly  to  the  object  of  their  reverence.  This 
statement  is  valuable  as  it  sheds  light  upon  what  in  those 
early  times  is  thus  proved  to  have  been  felt  as  a  grievance; 
and  shows  that  it  was  imperative  on  the  part  of  the  un¬ 
recognized  working  people  to  organize  and  take  counsel 
with  each  other  on  what  they  considered  a  most  important 
matter,  the  right  of  worship,  from  which  they  were  ex¬ 
cluded  on  account  of  their  reputed  meanness  of  birth. 
The  existence  or  non-existence  of  the  soul  depended  upon 
it.  Dirksen  in  his  Twelve  Tables  points  to  Gaius  in  proof 
that  the  hetairai  and  the  sodales  were  one  and  the  same 
organization ; 67  the  former  being  in  Greece  and  the  latter 
in  Italy.  He  further  states  that  a  comparison  with  the 
law  of  Solon  proves  that  they  were  tolerated  and  their  ac¬ 
tions  encouraged,  if  not  regulated  by  him.  The  Twelve 
Tables  are  now  known  to  be  contemporaneous  with,  if  not 
a  translation  from  the  law  of  Solon;  and  the  law  of  Solon 
was  a  paraphrase  of  the  still  more  ancient  law  of  Amasis 
an  Egyptian  king. 

Nor  was  this  organization  common  to  Rome  and  Greece. 
Granier  says:  “  Trades  Unions  existed  since  the  time  of 
Solomon,  and  among  the  Greeks  from  the  time  of  The¬ 
seus.”68  In  the  time  of  Joshua,  B.  C.  1537-1427,  they  are 
spoken  of.  We  have  evidence  regarding  an  organization 
that  attempted  a  resistance  to  the  overbearing  nobles,  in 
time  of  Agis  I.  These  were  Helots.  The  insurrection 
did  not  succeed,  for  it  appears  that  the  king  caused  their 
murder  in  large  numbers.  Agis  I,  was  one  of  the  mythi¬ 
cal  Spartan  kings  and  is  believed  to  have  reigned  more 
than  a  thousand  years  before  Christ.  This  great  massa¬ 
cre  of  the  helots  took  place  1055  years  before  Christ. 
Traditionally  the  event  came  down  to  the  era  of  writing 
as  something  mysterious  and  terrible.  When  at  last,  it 
entered  the  chronicles  of  historians  it  was  dim  in  detail 
and  being  a  subject  which  gave  pain  instead  of  pleasure 
— one  of  those  servile  episodes  which  early  history  appears 

67 They  had  in  Greece  the  avo-cnroi  (communists),  who  ate  at  the  common 
table,  the  oja oraQoi  (burial  societies),  the  tfiao-wrcu  (disciples  of  the  doctrine  a/ 
mutual  love). 

68  Granier  de  Cassagnac.  Histoire  des  Classes  Ouvribres,  chap.  xii. 


118 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


to  have  preferred  to  leave  unwritten — we  unfortunately 
have  only  a  few  faint  records  which  have  struggled  through 
the  mists  of  high  antiquity  and  gleam  darkly  through  sul¬ 
len  tradition  and  venturesome  historic  jottings  upon  us. 
But  the  murder  of  the  helots  by  order  of  Agis  I.  is  spoken 
of  by  many  authors  as  having  occurred  B.  C.  1,055  or  * 
thereabout.  After  that  event  they  became  adscripti 
glebcie ,  public  property  attached  to  the  soil. 

The  student  of  history  from  a  standpoint  of  sociology, 
would,  however,  be  glad  to  obtain  more  light  upon  that 
event ;  because  we  want  to  know  what  was  the  origin  of 
the  Aristotelian  philosophy  and  the  surroundings  that 
motived  it. 

Of  all  the  philosophies  or  systems  of  arrangement  as  a 
basis  of  enduring  polity,  the  chrematistics  of  Aristotle, 
properly  understood,  is  sure  to  be  that  which  any  and  all 
great  labor  movements  cannot  but  adopt.  The  sociolo¬ 
gist,  who  intelligently  scans  the  evolution  of  our  race  on  the 
enormous  scale  in  which  things  are  presented  to  him  by  the 
vicissitudes  of  the  lowly  and  downtrodden  poor  who  have 
fed  and  enriched  the  non-laboring  few  from  earliest  ages, 
cannot  but  wonder  how  a  rich  and  fortunate  man,  an  aris¬ 
tocrat,  a  believer  in  slavery,  a  dialectician,  and  one  who 
spurned  the  menial,  who  council  ed  and  advised  the  might¬ 
iest  of  monarchs,  could  have  settled  down  in  the  conclu¬ 
sion  that  there  is  only  one  way  of  getting  at  truth  and 
that  is  by  beginning  at  small  things  and  through  them,  in 
tireless  investigation  and  experiment,  learn  to  know  and 
improve.  Yet  all  who  study  the  logic  of  this  man,  as  laid 
down  by  him,  are  irresistibly  led  to  traverse  the  very  path 
which  he  opened  with  the  keen  edge  of  his  slashing  knife 
of  reason.  He  “  discriminated  between  the  several  facul¬ 
ties; — the  nourishing,  feeling,  concupiscent,  moving  and 
reasoning  powers  of  animal  organism  and  attempted  to 
explain  the  origin  of  these  powers  within  the  body,  and 
build  his  morals  and  politics  on  the  peculiarities  of  human 
organization.” 69  Everything  according  to  Aristotle,  if  we 
would  positively  know,  must  be  founded  on  close  obser¬ 
vation  of  facts.  His  eudaimonia  was  attained  only  through 
the  bliss  that  rewards  mind  or  reason  when  it  achieves 


69  American  Encyclopaedia,  Art.  Aristotle 


LABOR  A  SOURCE  OF  A  THINKER* S  SUCCESS.  117 


truth  by  indefatigable  experiment  and  experience.  He 
would  have  men  acquire  all  knowledge  by  study  of  hum¬ 
ble  facts,  and  lay  down  therefrom  a  true  basis  of  political 
economy.  Nothing,  not  even  the  servile  race,  the  slaves, 
the  freedmen,  the  workingmen,  was  so  mean  but  Aristotle 
could  enrich  his  mind  by  studying  it. 

Here  lies  concealed  from  all  eyes  except  those  of  the 
student  of  man  from  the  standpoint  of  sociology,  a  phe¬ 
nomenon.  Why  did  Aristotle  adopt  opposite  conclusions 
from  Plato,  his  old  master  ?  Plato  believed  largely  in  the 
theory  that  only  the  unseen  gods  dwelling  in  the  etherial 
abodes,  could  impart  to  man  absolute  knowledge.  Aris¬ 
totle  dared  believe  and  teach  that  knowledge  could  only 
be  had  by  observation  and  experiment  with  little  things; 
for  they  were  the  beginnings.  The  poor  workingman, 
then  infinitessimally  little  as  Aristotle  believed  him,  was 
the  beginning,  being  the  author  of  labor  product  and  con¬ 
sequently  worthy  of  observation  and  study.  This  was  the 
first  encouragement  the  unappreciated  maker  and  pro¬ 
ducer  of  all  means  of  life  ever  received  from  a  philoso¬ 
pher.70  In  all  ages  the  workingman  has  been  an  unob¬ 
served  factor.  He  is  of  the  earth;  this  he  has  himself 
acknowledged,  whatever  claims  the  idler  may  have  filed 
in  his  own  behalf  to  the  contrary.  Being  of  earth,  he 
digs  and  cultivates  it  and  from  his  labor  springs  the  fruit 
which  when  ripe  and  harvested  is  eaten  and  enjoyed  by 
the  idler.  He  built  edifices  which  have  survived  the  de¬ 
compositions  of  time  and  his  master  enjoyed  them.  But 
more  important  and  more  obscure  are  the  fine  details  he 
performed  which,  though  often  considered  too  mean  to 
mention,  were  in  reality  as  now,  the  very  bulwark  of  human 
existence  and  though  too  obscure  to  attract  attention  were 
in  reality  the  foundation  of  all  nourishment,  achievement, 
history  and  knowledge.  The  great  philosopher  saw  this. 
He  studied  nature;  and  the  workingman,  recognized  as 
an  element  of  nature,  was  watched  by  him.  The  numer¬ 
ous  mutual  societies  and  unions  of  resistance  existing  about 
the  philosopher  came  in  for  a  share  of  investigation  and 

io  It  has  been  stated  that  Aristotle  plagiarized  Kapila  and  certain  other  East 
Indian  teachers  and  authors  of  great  learning,  having  obtained  their  books  while 
on  his  celebrated  scientific  journey  of  researches  with  the  emperor  Alexander 
the  Great.  The  question  is  however,  obscure.  He  certainly  followed  some  ol 
the  Ideas  ol  Anaxagoraa,  Kapila  and  others. 


118 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


were  seen  to  be  the  deeply  underlying  fundament  oi  all 
whence  the  whole  superstructure  of  society  rose.  With¬ 
out  the  little,  and  humble,  too  unappreciated  producer  the 
world  would  be  a  wilderness  of  forests  and  wild  beasts 
Hence,  as  all  came  from  humble  toil,  so  the  toil  of  inves¬ 
tigation  and  experiment,  however  mean  and  unworthy  the 
rich  might  esteem  it,  was  the  very  most  necessary  of  all 
things  to  resort  to  in  order  to  arrive  at  truth,  improve¬ 
ment  and  correct  government.  This  is  the  basis  of  the 
philosophy  of  Aristotle.  The  world  is  following  it  to-day, 
led  by  labor;  and  the  myriad  links  of  invention,  and  dis¬ 
covery  in  experimental  progress,  are  in  exact  harmony 
with  the  recommendations  of  the  Stage  rite  of  the  Nym- 
phaeum. 

There  are  some  curious  episodes  in  the  life  of  Plato, 
which  the  ordinary  reader,  without  system  and  without 
knowledge  of  the  little  details  of  life  of  the  age  he  lived 
in,  overlooks.  What  was  the  trouble  with  him  at  Syra¬ 
cuse?  Nearly  four  hundred  years  before  Christ,  Plato, 
after  varied  travels,  after  he  had  written  his  "  Tlieae tetus,” 
and  his  “  Statesman,”  and  was  well-known  to  have  decided 
against  the  workingmen,  to  have  pronounced  them  too 
vile  to  merit  a  better  fate  than  bondage,  and  to  have  de¬ 
clared  that  the  proper  form  of  government  was  that  of 
aristocrats  and  slaves,  we  find  him  at  Syracuse,  spurned 
by  Dionysius,  waived  from  his  presence,  and  consigned  to 
the  billingsgate  that  fed  the  great  city  with  fish.n  To  be 
sent  away  from  the  tyrant’s  presence  when  his  sole  mission 
was  to  teach  his  majesty  the  honeyed  sweets  n  of  his  then 
famous  philosophy,  was  bad ;  but  to  be  relegated  to  the 
city’s  ban-limes ,  among  the  brobdagnagians,  and  hear 
their  ridicule,  was  worse.  But  they  must  have  been  especi¬ 
ally  disagreeable  to  him  since  he  well  knew  that  their 
raillery  was  directed  against  him..  They  were  of  the  low¬ 
born,  with  little  education  and  no  urbanity ;  he  was  of 
the  great  gens  family,  a  very  Ariston,  of  pure  stock, 
boasted  of,  among  all  Athenians.  But  they  had  wit  and 
sufficient  means  of  knowing  facts,  to  be  informed  that  he 
was  the  proud  teacher  of  aristocrats,  that  he  did  not  teach 

n  Grote,  Plato  and  the  other  Companions  of  Socrates. 

72  “At  Platoni  quurn  in  cunis  parvulodormienti  apes  In  labellis  conssediseal 
responsum  est,  singulari  ilium  suavitate  orationis  fore;  ita  futura  eloquent!# 
pvovisa  in  infante  est.”  Cicero,  De  Divinatu-ie,  I.  36. 


PLATO  CAUGHT  BY  FISHMONGERS 


119 


the  lowest  of  the  people  but  that  he  believed  with  the  cit¬ 
izens  of  Sparta  and  of  Athens  that  their  slavery  and 
humiliation  were  just.  W e  also  have  found  some  evidence 
that  these  people  were  organized.  They  belonged  to  the 
four  trade  unions,  viz :  the  mercenaries,73  the  caudicarii  or 
boatmen  and  sailors,  the  piscatorii,  fisherman  and  the 
fabri,  artisans.  There  must  also  have  been  unions  of  the 
tax  gatherers ;  at  any  rate  in  later  times,  for  Cicero  men¬ 
tions  vectigalia  in  connection  with  Yerres  who  was  gov¬ 
ernor  in  Sicily.74 

This  last  fact  is  one  very  interesting  to  know ;  for  it 
sheds  fresh  fight  upon  that  memorable  episode  in  the  life 
of  Plato.  The  unions,  finding  that  the  tyrant  Dionysius  had 
taken  an  affront  at  Plato,  and  hating  him  themselves,  were 
willing  to  col  spire  with  the  king  against  his  life.  It  was 
probably  an  organization  of  the  caudicarii  whom  Dionysius 
engaged  to  carry  him  off  to  Italy  and  their  greed  to  make 
a  living  out  of  the  affair  was  probably  what  saved  his  life. 
Instead  of  killing  him  as  they  were  probably  paid  to  do,  they 
received  an  offer  in  Italy  for  him  alive,  which  they  ac¬ 
cepted  and  sold  Plato  as  a  slave.  He  was  afterwards  ran¬ 
somed  by  his  friend  Dion  and  returned  to  Athens  a  wiser 
man.  We  are  not  informed  as  to  what  influence  this  ex¬ 
perience  had  upon  the  great  philosopher ;  but  there  are 
gleamings  which  illume  our  conjecture  that  his  illustri¬ 
ous  disciple,  Aristotle,  who  always  opposed  his  theories, 
took  care  to  enrich  his  store  of  wisdom  from  the  circum¬ 
stance. 

In  early  times,  while  the  world  was  yet  too  ignorant  and 
inexperienced  to  understand  the  advantages  of  arbitration 
and  of  subsisting  upon  peaceful  rather  than  warlike  meas¬ 
ures,  brigandage  was  common.  It  existed  by  interna¬ 
tional  permission  or  common  consent.  The  only  indus¬ 
trial  system  then  known  was  that  conducted  by  the  trade 
unions;  for  according  to  the  regulations  of  Solon  and  king 
Numa,  even  the  slaves  were  many  times  managed  by  over- 
Beers  who  were  under  pay  of  the  unions.  The  rich  citi- 

wGrote,  Hitt.  p.  79.  The  mercenary  soldiers  especially  hated  Plato  who 
had  acted  the  friend  of  Dionysius.  The  latter  had  cut  down  their  pay,  p.  86). 
In  consequence  of  which  they  had  struck.  They  were  all  organized.  Cf.  also, 
Grote’s  Plato,  and  Livy,  XXV.  33. 

n  Cicero,  Verres.  II.  3,  7  :  “Quoniam  quasi  quicdam  prsedia  populi  Ro¬ 
mani  sunt  vectigalia  nostra  atque  provinci®.” 


120 


THE  MYSTERIES, 


zen  believed  it  a  disgrace  to  labor.  He  made  his  wealth 
or  cap  work  for  him.  Among  other  chattels  were  his 
slaves.  But  he  was  too  high  to  personally  conduct  the 
labor  of  slaves.  This  was  done,  to  a  large  extent,  by  those 
who  were  not  ashamed  to  perform  labor.  Of  course, 
then,  these  overseers  were  descendants  of  slaves.  They 
were  the  freedmen,  who  on  receiving  their  manumission 
struck  out  for  themselves;  and  for  safety  and  success 
formed  themselves  into  unions  for  mutual  assistance  and 
resistance  against  competition,  danger  and  abuse.  Among 
the  multitudes  of  occupations  they  assumed  are  found, 
especially  with  the  Grecians  and  Syracusians,  the  Phoe¬ 
nicians  and  the  people  inhabiting  the  Grecian  Archipel¬ 
ago,  that  of  brigands  and  the  mercenaries.  Both  the 
brigands  and  mercenary  systems  were  closely  leagued 
into  unions  which  upheld  each  other  in  the  vicissitudes 
of  the  struggle  for  life.  The  whole  system  of  the  warlike 
patrician  families  both  in  Greece  and  Home  may  be  said 
to  be  one  of  brigandage.  What  is  arming  a  multitude  of 
idle  men,  disciplining  them  to  the  use  of  weapons  and 
marching  them  into  a  neighboring  country  to  destroy  the 
products  of  industry  but  brigandage  ?  Yet  ancient  his¬ 
tory  is  a  constant  repetition  of  this  predatory  and  cruel 
system.  It  was  brigandage. 

Among  the  sufferers  from  this  system  were  oftentimes 
the  working  people ;  some  of  them  slaves,  but  many  also 
freedmen,  belonging  to  unions.  They  were  thus  torn 
from  their  peaceful  occupation.  Possessing  the  long  ex¬ 
perience  of  association  they  naturally  utilized  this  their 
only  means  of  gaining  a  living,  by  becoming  brigands. 
They  turned  their  trade  unions  into  bandities  and  learned 
to  estrange  themselves  from  habits  of  industrious  peace  and 
assume  the  fierce  modes  of  marauders.  They  exchanged 
the  workshop  for  the  jungles,  the  mountain  fastnesses,  the 
caves  and  thus  became  fighters  and  guerrillas.  A  remark¬ 
able  case  of  this  desperation  is  seen  in  that  extraordinary 
man  Spartacus,  the  gladiator,  of  whom  we  shall  give,  in  a 
future  chapter,  a  complete  and  exhaustive  history,  in  in¬ 
vestigating  the  terrible  results  of  Roman  repression  of 
trade  unions  by  the  conspiracy  laws.  It  is  enough  here 
merely  to  mention  that  this  tendency  of  ancient  labor  or¬ 
ganization  to  reverse  their  habits,  forsake  the  peaceful  in- 


THE  TRADE  UNION  A  STATE  INSTITUTION.  121 


dustries  which  they  loved,  and  wander  away  in  organized 
clubs  seeking  subsistence  through  plunder,  was  by  no 
means  a  fault  as  such  actions  are  now  considered;  for 
otherwise  they  would  have  immediately  been  seized  by 
the  conquering  legions  and  sold  into  slavery.  In  those 
precarious  times,  therefore,  brigandage  was  no  crime,  al¬ 
though  to  be  caught  was  slavery  or  death.  But  it  added 
a  fierceness  to  the  social  aspect  of  the  human  race. 

The  Eleusinian  mysteries  caused  a  great  deal  of  dissat¬ 
isfaction  and  feud  by  reason  of  their  severe,  aristocratic 
exclusiveness  which  often  wounded  the  pride  even  of  the 
haughty  patrician  families  of  Attica,  and  we  now  return 
to  them  as  our  legitimate  theme.  In  our  chapter  on  the 
system  of  trade  unions  farther  on  we  give  a  detailed  de¬ 
scription  of  the  ancient  labor  unions  and  evidences  of 
their  immense  number  which  we  have  collected,  partly  by 
our  own  travel  and  observation,  partly  by  personal  inter¬ 
views  with  the  great  authors  of  Archaeological  works  and 
partly  by  ransacking  with  much  patience  and  labor  every 
written  statement  which  original  law  and  history,  together 
with  the  criticism  of  modern  and  ancient  authors  thereon, 
have  contributed  to  illume  this  dark  page  of  the  social 
past. 

The  ancient  trade  union,  both  under  the  law  of  Solon 
and  of  Numa  Pompilius,  was  a  state  institution!  The 
land  taken  by  conquest  "belonged  to  the  state,  together 
with  the  family  religion  and  all  its  magnificent  temples  of 
worship.  The  great  buildings  of  the  cities  were  property 
of  the  state;  most  of  the  slaves  who  cultivated  the  soil 
under  the  direction,  exclusively,  of  the  trade  union,  were 
also  property  of  the  state.  This  made  a  social  state — an 
almost  socialistic  state — and  in  many  respects  more  social 
than  political;  but  entirely  spoiled  by  the  terrible  social 
distinctions  of  rank.16  The  religion,  based  upon  heredity 
and  superstition  combined,  was  an.  extraordinary  tissue 
of  errors,  greatly  increasing  the  common  misery  of  the 
people  by  flaunting  in  their  faces  the  insult  that  none  but 


75  Millar,  Origin  of  Ranks,  Basil.  1793.  chap,  vi.;  Granier,  Hist.  de<  C!  asset 
Ouvri'eret,  pp.  484-493.  In  his  18th  chapter,  Granier  cites  the  rescript  of  An¬ 
toninus  Pius  :  “Dominorum  quidem  potestatem  m  servos  suos  inlibiium  etse 
oportet,  nec  cuiquam  hominum  jus  suuxn  detrahi.'  Ulpian,  De  Officio  Procon- 
tulis.  lib  VIII;  De  Dominorum  Saevitia.  This  power  of  the  masters  over  their 
slaves  was  thus  lat«*r  tmiis  "erred  to  the  .state. 


122 


THE  MYSTERIES. . 


the  high-horn  citizen,  eligible  to  the  Eleusinian  mysteries, 
could  be  sure  of  heaven.  There  could  be  no  peace  of 
mind  while  such  a  grievance  existed;  for  it  not  only 
goaded  the  greater  part  of  the  people  as  an  insult  but 
distracted  them  with  fears.  It  is  a  prominent  character¬ 
istic  of  the  Aryan  race  to  believe  in  religion  and  build  up 
institutions  of  a  religious  nature;  and  it  will  probably  re¬ 
main  so  unless  some  physical  discovery  be  made  throwing 
positive  light  against  the  theory  of  immortality.  At  the 
same  time  the  Indo-Europeans  were — precisely  as  they 
still  are — an  extremely  democratic  people  by  nature.  A 
religion,  then,  based  upon  the  most  absurdly  aristocratic 
dogmas  could  not,  without  great  conflict  maintain  itself 
among  the  equality-loving  Indo-Europeans.  Jesus  Christ 
during  his  visit  among  us  established  the  remarkable  idea 
that  God  was  no  respecter  of  persons ;  that  all  men  were 
created  equal;  that  although  the  elysion  and  tartar  os  or 
the  heaven  and  hell  were  the  same,  the  eligibility  to  gain 
the  one  and  fly  the  other  depended  not  upon  stock,  birth, 
fortune,  but  behavior.  The  revolution  was  then  begun. 
When  we  understand  from  a  standpoint  of  scientific  so¬ 
ciology  the  phenomena  of  the  past  thus  connected  with 
the  ancient  struggles  of  the  lowly,  there  bursts  forth  be¬ 
fore  our  vision  a  glory  of  light  sweeping  away  hitherto 
insurmountable  difficulties  to  the  analysis  of  certain  vague 
and  obscure  points  in  history. 

It  is  now,  after  having  opened  these  facts  thus  far,  in 
order  to  set  down  two  theorems :  The  first  is,  that  the 
greater  the  organization  of  the  working  classes  for  mutual 
'protection  and  resistance  the  higher  the  standard  of  en¬ 
lightenment  in  the  communities  they  inhabit.  In  other 
words  the  intensity  of  enlightenment  in  civilization  may 
be  measured  and  compared  by  the  numeric  proportion  of 
the  laboring  people  arrayed  in  organized  resistance  against 
ignorance  and  oppression.  The  second  theorem  may  be 
construed  to  read  that  the  higher  the  enlightenment ,  the 
more  complete  is  the  extinction  of  social  ranks. 

We  are  also  now  ready  to  make  an  announcement 
which  no  person  can  consistently  deny,  to  wit  :  that  the 
era  covered  by  the  ancient  trade  unions  is  that  known, 
sung  and  celebrated  as  the  “Golden  Age.”  It  is  not  only 
the  era  of  military,  but  pre-eminently  of  social,  and  iu 


TEE  ANCIENT  SOCIAL  STATE. 


123 

Greece,  of  intellectual  prosperity.  The  great  literary  era 
of  the  Romans  occupies  the  latter  half  of  the  celebrated 
golden  era.  It  lasted  from  the  days  of  Numa  Pompilius 
who  encouraged  the  free  organization  of  Roman  trade 
unions  which  was  about  690  years  before  Christ,  until  the 
year  58  B.  C.  when  Csesar  ordered  the  conspiracy  laws.76 
In  Greece  from  the  time  of  Solon  about  592  years  before 
Christ  it  continued  down  to  her  conquest  by  the  Romans. 

Thus  the  economical  prosperity  of  both  Greece  and 
Rome  is  proved  to  have  covered  those  centuries  which 
were  favored  with  the  right  of  free  organization.  We 
shall  now  proceed  to  touch  upon  the  actual  deeds  of  these 
unions  and  show  as  we  have  the  evidences  that  the  su¬ 
perb  architectural  works  whose  august  ruins  still  amaze 
the  beholder  were,  to  some  extent  at  least,  the  handiwork 
of  those  trade  unions,  backed  by  that  phenomenal,  and  to 
the  present  age,  incomprehensible  social  state  which  never 
sold  its  lands,  religion,  jurisprudence  or  ornaments  to 
others,  nor  allowed  them  to  be  overridden  by  monopolies. 
The  labor  of  land  culture — which  produced  and  distributed 
among  all  people  their  food — of  manufacturing  arms  and 
equipments  for  the  armies,  of  provisioning  the  armies 
while  on  the  march  and  at  rest,  of  manufacturing  and  re¬ 
pairing  the  household  furniture,  of  image-making,  which 
appears  to  have  been  a  considerable  industry  and  of  con¬ 
structing  architectural  works,  was  largely  assigned  to  the 
labor  unions  during  the  golden  age.77  Numa  discouraged 
warfare,  but  made  specific  arrangements  governing  the 
artisan  class; 78  and  at  the  Saturnalia  obliterated  the  lines 
of  distinction  between  the  nobles  and  the  common  born. 
He  distributed  the  artisans  into  nine  great  mechanical 
fraternities.  Flavius  Josephus  79  gives  an  elaborate  and 
highly  interesting  account  of  the  building  of  the  temple 
of  Jerusalem  by  Solomon.  Suffice  it  to  say  here,  that  the 
employer,  Hiram,  who  was  engaged  by  Solomon  to  come 
with  his  skill  and  skilled  force  all  the  way  from  Tyre  a 
distance  of  about  100  miles,  to  design  and  construct  this 


T«  Suetonius,  Ccesar,  42:  “Ceesar  cuncta  collegia  praeter  antiquitus  con- 

■tltuta  distraxt.” 

nGranier,  pp.  284-323,  all  through. 

■»*  Plutarch,  Numa,  cap.  xvii.;  also  Lycurgus,  and  Numa  Compared. 
is  Josephus,  Antiquities  o *  the  Jews  book  XII.  cap.  ii.  ;  also  Hitt,  o/ the  Jews, 
book  VT1X. 


124 


TEE  MYSTERIES. 


magnificent  edifice,  was,  so  to  speak,  a  boss  or  chief  over 
a  trade  union,  which  through  him,  took  one  of  the  largest 
and  most  imposing  contracts  known  in  ancient  or 
modern  times;  and  it  is  a  very  interesting  example  of  the 
intelligence  and  extraordinary  enterprise  of  the  Phoenici¬ 
ans.  We  are  not  among  those  eager  creduli  who  jump 
at  conclusions,  and  ready  to  suppose  that  this  Hiram  was 
the  founder  of  the  celebrated  ancient  fraternity  of  “  Free 
Masons.”  On  the  contrary,  the  institution  was  old  when 
Hiram  brought  to  Solomon  the  3,200  foremen  and  the 
40,000  artificers  who  built  this  gorgeous  temple  of  which 
Josephus  so  glowingly  speaks.  But  this  immense  work 
being  a  religious  undertaking,  conducted  by  a  political 
decree  and  under  state  control,  and  furthermore  being  a 
Semitic,  not  an  Aryan  enterprise  and  consequently  free 
from  the  mean,  rank  exclusivism  characterizing  and  belit¬ 
tling  the  source-history  of  all  their  great  works,  was  able 
to  rise  and  carry  with  it  some  lucid  scintillae  as  to  the 
manner  of  its  erection.  The  great  temple  of  Solomon 
furnished  posterity  a  slight  glimpse  at  the  order  of  Free 
Masons ;  being  a  landmark  merely  observable  in  an  ob¬ 
scure  night  of  time.  Its  ruins  may,  therefore,  be  truth¬ 
fully  classed,  by  the  student  of  sociology,  as  archaeological 
proof  of  the  ancient  trade  union  movement.  By  this,  the 
mind  of  the  general  reader  may  better  understand  the 
source  of  that  all-pervading  cloud  which  so  unfortunately 
shuts  us  off  from  the  clues — to  say  nothing  of  the  history 
— regarding  the  construction  of  one  of  the  most  magnifi¬ 
cent  works  of  sculptured  masonary  ever  produced.  The 
religio-political  institutions,  based  on  the  antithetic  origin 
of  birth  and  its  entailments  of  rank,  prevented  the  work¬ 
ingmen  from  rising  into  recognition,  or  transmitting  be¬ 
yond  their  own  generation  any  detailed  knowledge  as  to 
bow  those  structures  rose.  The  powerful  archon  Pericles, 
of  Athens,  furnished  us  an  illustration  of  this.  He  wanted 
to  build  the  Parthenon.  Now  Pericles,  the  statesman, 
building  a  church,  shows  that  no  difference  existed  be¬ 
tween  church  and  state,  since  belief  was  compulsory  un¬ 
der  law.  The  Parthenon  was  the  grandest  edifice  of  either 
the  ancient  or  modern  world.8*  Although  Pericles  was  a 


80  On  hi  and  Koner,  L\fe  of  the  Ghseks  and  Romans,  pp.  25-28. 


THE  BRILLIANT  LOW- BORNS. 


12t 

noble,  of  the  family  of  the  Pisistrati&fe,  yet  we  know  that 
he  was  the  intimate  friend  of  Phidias.  So  we  are  informed 
that  Solomon  enjoyed  the  acquaintance  of  Hiram.  This 
might  be,  though  Phidias  and  Hiram  were  both  of  mean 
extraction,  according  to  the  estimation  of  ranks.  But 
their  superiors  admired  them  for  their  genius  alone.  A 
wonderful  contrast  projects  from  a  coincidence  of  the  late 
mediaeval  age,  consisting  in  Raphael’s  intimacy  with  Pope 
Leo  X.,  for  at  the  time  of  Raphael,  Christianity  with  its 
inexorable  moral  erosions  had  gnawed  away  much  of  the 
ancient  ranks,  and  had  begun  to  invite  an  absolute  equal¬ 
ity  ;  whereas,  in  the  more  ancient  times,  under  the  domin¬ 
ion  of  the  Pagan  faith,  it  could  not  be  more  than  admira¬ 
tion  and  acquaintance.  In  the  same  manner,  Pericles,  who 
was  the  master  political  genius  of  his  age,  could  admire 
and  keep  an  acquaintance  with  Aspasia,  a  lad}^  of  the 
lower  rank,  but  he  could  not  raise  her  by  any  gift  of  title 
to  a  higher  one  than  that  in  which  she  was  born. 

It  is  almost  certain  that  in  the  construction  of  the  Par¬ 
thenon,  Ictinus  was  to  Pericles  what  Hiram 81  was  to  Solo¬ 
mon.  Ictinus,82  we  are  told,  was  chief  architect,  and  with 
the  assistance  of  Callicrates  and  Phidias  who  worked  on 
the  chryselephantine  statue  of  Athena,  had  charge,  as 
chief  architect,  of  the  Parthenon.  It  appears 83  that  Phi¬ 
dias  took  the  entire  control  of  all  the  building  enterprises 
of  Athens  and  also,  probably  of  the  temple  of  Eleusis:  for 
Ictinus  built  the  fane  of  this  temple.  We  are  now  cen¬ 
tering  upon  the  interesting  point  of  our  investigation.  It 
took  Phidias,  Ictinus  and  Callicrates  ten  years  to  design 
and  complete  the  new  Parthenon,  the  most  magnificent 
and  imposing  structure  of  ancient  or  modern  times.  More 
fortunate  are  we  in  having  Josephus  and  other  authority 
for  the  temple  of  Solomon  whereon  not  only  the  chief 
architect,  but  3,200  foremen  and  40,000  masons  of  the 
great  “  body”  or  masons’  fraternity  were  engaged.84 

At  the  Piraeus  there  existed,  at  the  time  of  the  building 
of  the  Parthenon,  great  numbers  of  trade  unions,86  under 

81  Care  should  be  taken  not  to  confound  Hiram  the  artificer  with  his  friend 
Hiram  the  king.  83Guhl  and  Koner,  Idem,  p.  25. 

83  Pausanias,  Hellados  Periegesis,  (Description  of  Greece). 

84  Josephus,  Antiquities  of  the  Jews,  book  VII.  chap,  ii.  In  latin  the  “body" 
torpus,  was  a  legalized  workingmen’s  society,  the  same  as  collegium.  See  Drelli, 
Tnscr.  Vol.  III.  Henzen,  p.  170,  of  supplement  index. 

86  See  Chapter  I.  of  Lttders  Dionysische  Kunstler,  pp.  14-18. 


128 


T'jlE  mysjejufs. 


a  provision  of  Solon  engraved  on  wooden  scrolls  and  kept 
in  the  Acropolis  rnd  the  Prytaneum,  which  were  legalized 
organizations  and  whose  recognized  business  was  to  wort’ 
for  the  state.  Now  with  the  multitudes  of  trade  unions 
existing  all  around,  at  Athens,  at  the  Piraeus,  at  Eleusis- 
is  it  supposable  that  the  three  directors  built  the  parthe. 
non  in  ten  years?  Instead  of  the  3,200  foremen  and  40- 
000  men  as  at  Jerusalem,  there  were  probably  at  Athens 
4,000  foremen  and  50,000  masons,  sculptors,  draftsmen, 
hod  carriers,  laborers  and  others  too  numerous  to  detail 
We  find  that  this  great  public  work  was  finished  438  years 
before  Christ,  just  at  the  time  when  the  golden  age  of 
labor  was  at  its  zenith  of  glory  both  in  Greece  and  Rome. 

It  was  the  golden  age  of  art  and  economic  thrift.  It 
also  corresponds  exactly  with  the  stretch  of  time  during 
which  the  trade  unions  under  the  laws  of  Solon  at  Athens 
and  of  Numa  at  Rome  were  in  fullest  force,  granting  and 
encouraging  organization  of  the  working  people,  which 
was  used  by  them  for  protection  and  for  resistance  to  all 
dangers  that  might  beset  them. 

It  is  thus  shown  that  while  a  serious  grievance  existed 
among  the  working  people  of  ancient  Greece,  in  form  of 
an  exclusivism  denying  them  the  right  to  save  their  souls 
by  becoming  members  on  equal  footing  in  the  Eleusinian 
order,  there  also  existed  a  vast  organization  or  confrater¬ 
nity  which,  then  as  now,  afforded  them  opportunities  for 
meeting  in  secret  and  discussing  this  grievance.  It  is 
scarcely  necessary  even  to  conjecture  whether  they  did  or 
did  not  use  these  advantages  for  such  discussion.  Human 
nature  is  alike  in  all  ages.  When  the  conspiracy  law,  or 
law  of  Elizabeth,  was  annulled  in  1824, 88  permitting  the 
people  to  organize  in  England,  they  immediately  took  ad¬ 
vantage  of  every  opportunity  trade  unionism  afforded, 
wherewith  to  discuss  their  grievances.  The  growth  and 
intelligence  of  the  ponderous  labor  movement  in  the 
United  States  is  largely  due  to  the  discussion  which  is 
constantly  taking  place  in  their  secret  unions.  We  ven¬ 
ture  that  the  same  thing  occurred  in  the  times  we  are  de¬ 
scribing;  because  it  could  not  well  have  been  otherwise. 
Where  the  grievance  exists  and  the  opportunity  to  meet 

aeThorold  Rogers,  Six  Centuries  of  Work  and  Wages,  p.  438  As  to  the  nature 
9f  the  act  of  Elizabeth,  see  idem,  pp.  398*  9.  Cf.  Porter’s  Progress  of  the  Nation, 


THE  LAW  OF  ORGANIZATION \ 


137 


and  discuss  it  exists,  it  is  not  in  the  order  of  nature  among 
intelligent  beings,  to  resist  it.  We  are  fortunate  enough 
to  have  found  statements  upon  the  subjects  of  trade  unions 
transmitted  to  us  through  great  authority.  Gaius,  who 
wrote  a  digest  of  law  on  the  Twelve  Tables,  has  a  passage 
which  has  been  preserved  and  so  important  is  it  that 
both  Granier  and  Mommsen  refer  to  it  as  conclusive  evi¬ 
dence  that  the  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  providing  for  the 
right  among  working  people  to  organize  and  enjoy  trade 
unions,  was  to  some  extent  a  translation  from  Greek  tables 
of  the  code  of  Solon.87  In  this  passage  are  mentioned  many 
organizations  taken  from  the  Greek  text  inscribed  on 
the  scroll  of  the  law  of  Solon  and  also  on  the  tablet  of  the 
Twelve  Tables.  The  Thiasotai  then  were  precisely  in 
Greek  what  the  Collegia  were  in  Latin.  The  sailors’ 
unions  here  mentioned  were  the  same  which  we  speak  of 
elsewhere  as  existing  in  large  numbers  at  the  Piraeus  or  sea¬ 
port  of  Athens  which  was  distant  from  the  metropolis  only 
five  miles.  The  organizations  of  the  stone  masons,  the 
marble  cutters,  the  carvers,  the  image  makers  of  wood 
mineral  and  ivory,  and  others,  were  located  within  the 
city.  Some  of  these  unions,  probably  .the  image  makers, 
pretended  more  religious  piety  than  others;  but  the  fact 
is,88  that  all  of  them  were  combined  for  mutual  aid  and  re¬ 
sistance  against  grievances.  Under  the  law,  so  long 
as  they  did  not  corrupt  the  statutes  of  the  country  ( *dum 
ne  quid  ex  publica  lege  corrumpant ” )  they  were  not  only 
allowed  to  career  unmolested  but  were  even  protected  by 
this  provision  of  the  great  lawgivers. 

This  brings  us  face  to  face  with  two  proven  facts:  that 

m  Digest,  lib.  XL VII.  tit.  xxiL  leg.  4:  “Sodales  surrt  qoi  ejusdem  collegil 
stmt  quam  Grseci  krapiav  vocant.”  Again:  “Sodallbus,”  ait  Gains,  “potestatera 
facit  lex  (duodecim  Tabularum)  pactionem  quam  velint  eibi  ferre.  dum  ne  quid 
ex  publica  lege  corrumpant.”  Sedhaec  lex  videtur  ex  lege  Solonis  translata 
esse;  nam  illuc  ita  est :  “E’AvM  Sjpto?,  r j  <f>pixTpoes ,  f/  ieputr  opyitov,  r]  i >avraif 
aiivaiTOL,  ij  op.6Ta<f>oi ,  tj  diacrwrai,  r)  eirt  Ai'av  ot'xop.evoi,  fj  its  tpitopiav.  (f  ri  ravroiv 
StaSwvrac  irpos  aAAijAovs,  Kvptov  elrat,  Up  p.r)  airayopev<nj  Sr)P-6(ria  ypap.fia.Ta.' 
Both  Mommsen  (De  Cottegils  et  Sodaliciis  Romanorum,  p.  3o,)  and  Granier,  Hist, 
des  Classes  Ouvrieres,  p.  291,  quote  this  remarkable  passage  from  the  Digest. 
The  unions  here  mentioned  in  the  Solonic  law  are  the  Brotherhood  the  Priests  of 
the  Communes,  the  Sailors,  the  Co-operators,  the  Burial  Fraternities;  and  the  reg¬ 
ular  trade  unions  or  ^iWutu  such  as  were  organized  in  the  categories  of  Numa 

88  Mommsen,  De  Collegiit  et  Sodaliciis  Romanorum,  p.  35,  “Ut  igitur  de  in* 
terpretatione  verb!  a  XTT.  Tabulis  adhibiti  non  constet,  Gaii  verba  ad  omnia  col¬ 
legia  pertinere  certum  est  neque  ulla  ratio  reddi  videtur  posse,  cur  collegia  opi- 
flcum  legum  ferendarum  jure  caruerint  sacris  sodalitatibus  concesso.”  See  also 
Ltlders,  Die  Dinoysischen  Kunstler,  passim.  These  points  are  overwhelming  in 
proof  that  the  Greek  and  Roman  trade  union  systems  were  nearly  identical. 


m 


TEE  MYSTERIES. 


daring  the  renowned  era  of  Grecian  architecture,  belles-let¬ 
tres ,  philosophy,  sculpture,  paintings — all  work  of  labor¬ 
ers — there  also  flourished  a  great  labor  movement;  just  as 
now  in  England,  in  Germany,  in  France,  in  the  TJnited 
States  and  Canada,  during  the  most  brilliant  period  of  all 
human  enlightenment,  ancient  or  modem,  there  flour¬ 
ishes  an  enormous  social  organization  for  self-help  and 
for  resistance  against  grievance  endured  by  working  peo¬ 
ple.  It  also  proves  the  correctness  of  our  theorems  that 
the  greater  the  organization  of  the  laboring  people  against 
grievances  the  higher  the  enlightenment,  and  the  higher 
the  enlightenment  the  more  complete  the  extinction  of  so¬ 
cial  rank ;  consequently  the  intensity  of  human  civiliza¬ 
tion  viewed  on  the  largest  scale,  is,  under  the  competitive 
system,  to  be  ascertained  by  the  prevalence  or  non-pre¬ 
valence  of  these  organizations,  acting  as  mutually  self -aid¬ 
ing  forces  and  as  tribunals  or  courts  of  appeal  from  the 
grievances  their  members  are  liable  to  suffer.  How  inef¬ 
fable,  then,  the  arrogance  of  a  paltry  few !  What  must 
have  been  the  character  of  resistance  during  the  times  of 
which  we  speak  ?  Evidently  very  crude.  At  the  present 
day  there  is  much  system ;  a  general  interlinking  of  union 
with  union,  no  matter  how  wide  apart,  for  a  quite  clearly 
expressed  common  cause.  Not  so  anciently,  although  we 
have  an  inscription  at  Pompeii  to  prove  that  in  B.  C.  79 
there  existed  an  international  union.  Their  grievances 
were  greater  than  now,  because  social  equality  was  con- 
temptously  and  most  openly  put  down.  The  law  recog¬ 
nized  them  as  having  no  more  claim  to  citizenship  than 
dogs.  Now,  in  Germany,  France,  almost  everywhere,  the 
working  people  are  voting. 

Whoever,  in  reading  the  *  Ancient  Assemblies,”89  for  a 
moment  imagines  that  those  celebrated  gatherings  in¬ 
cluded  the  slaves  orfreedmen,  should  read  more  carefully. 
It  is  \hz  freemen  who  are  meant,  not  freedmen.  The  differ¬ 
ence  was  simply  infinite,  even  in  enlightened  Attica;  for 
freedmen  were  descendants  of  the  ancient  slaves.  They 
never  were  citizens,  could  not  vote,  could  not  hope,  except 
in  cases  of  great  genius  like  that  of  Phidias,  to  be  decently 


**8ch8mann,  Hist.  Assemblies  of  the  Athenians,  passim.  This  book  will  cleai 
ftp  any  error  readers  may  entertain  who  doubts  whether  the  working  class  was 
allowed  a  vclce  in  legislation. 


NATURE  OF  DISL'USSION  AMONG  TIIE  LOWLY.  129 


spoken  to;  and  even  as  such  they  were  obliged  to  obtain 
some  special  decree  from  the  Areopagus  in  order  to  detach 
themselves  from  this  scathing  odium  of  rank.  Being  so 
mean,  so  lowly,  while  the  patricians,  the  grandees,  the  free¬ 
men  were  descendants  of  the  nobility  in  the  direct  lineage 
of  the  gods,  it  followed  that  the  gods  also  contemned  them. 
Consequently  two-thirds  of  the  population  of  Greece  were 
without  a  soul.  If  they  claimed  to  have  souls  they  knew 
that  the  only  place  for  them  was  Tartarus  or  hell ;  certainly 
not  heaven;  for  that  was  the  abode  of  the  gods  who  spurned 
them  on  account  of  their  lowly  birth.  Better  cultivate  the 
belief  that  they  had  no  souls  at  all!  This  to  them,  terrible 
reflection,  was  probably  the  origin  of  the  ancient  philosophy 
of  annihilation.90  The  philosophy  of  extinction  of  the  sou1 
must  have  consumed  a  share  of  the  discussions  of  those  an¬ 
cient  mechanics  in  their  secret  meetings.  They  built  the 
magnificent  temples  which  glowed  with  genial  warmth  of 
the  solemn  and  haughty  religion,  only  for  the  heaven-born, 
repelling  with  sullen  frowns  the  earth-born  designers  and 
finishers  of  their  collonades,  vaults  and  sculptured  images. 
N  o  merely  political  institution  could  possibly  separate  so 
widely  one  class  from  another  as  did  that  arrogant  religion 
which  not  only  instituted  slavery  of  the  laboring  people  but 
denied  them  an  immortal  soul  and  the  beatitudes  of 
heaven.91  There  is  now  no  grievance  of  this  kind  in  civil¬ 
ized  existence — although  economical  and  social  dissatis¬ 
faction  remains.  The  new  religion  is  rapidly  extinguishing 
the  dogma  of  distinctions  in  birth,  as  well  as  the  dogma 
that  “  the  earth-bom  have  no  immortal  existence.”  w 

Narrowing  the  array  of  evidence  into  our  legitimate  field, 
we  find  in  Eleusis  a  target  at  which  millions  are  peering 
with  a  mingling  of  longing,  of  envy  and  of  hate.  They  are 

90  Consult  Lucretius,  Dt  Rerum  Natura ;  also  Arnobius,  who  wrote  the  fa¬ 
mous  Adversus  Oentes.  Arnobius  was  not  fully  convinced  of  Christianity  ;  and 
at  the  same  time  his  mind  was  evidently  so  enlarged  by  it  that  he  could  not 
reconcile  it  with  the  older  Pagan  belief  in  the  nether  post-mortem  abodes.  He 
was  however,  religiously  inclined  and  was  reluctantly  drawn  to  Christianity 
which  obliterated  all  lines  by  declaring  the  equality  of  aU  mankind.  Between 
these  awful  doubts  Arnobius  seems  never  to  have  come  to  a  belief  in  an  immortal 
existence.  Pliny  the  celebrated  naturalist  was  a  believer  in  the  doctrine  of  Lu¬ 
cretius  that  there  is  no  existence  hereafter.  Cf.  Cuvier  in  Bibliog.  Universelle. 

91  Granier,  Hist.  Whole  argument ;  Fustel  deCoulanges.CWe  Antique.  No  intelli¬ 
gent  person  can  read  these  invaluable  works  without  understanding  our  meaning. 

92  Whatever  science  may  or  may  not  devolop  regarding  these  debatable 
theories  is  not  the  part  of  this  disquisition  to  consider.  We  simply  give  the 
facta  at  command,  as  to  the  difference  between  the  grievances  discussed  b| 
the  organizations  of  then  and  now. 


130 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


the  two-thirds  of  the  population  of  the  country — the  labor¬ 
ing  ranks.  There,  upon  a  lovely  range  of  rock  and  lawn 
stands  the  old  Pelasgian  city  of'Eleusis,  populous  and  thick- 
studded  with  their  own  eranoi  and  thiasoi ,  labor  unions 
whose  members  are  the  strong-muscled  men  of  Greece.  It 
is  the  eve  of  autumn,  the  great  quinquennial  Boedromion 
which  from  traditions  brought  mystic  meanings  picturing 
the  fierce  amazons  in  flight  before  the  conquering  giants  of 
Theseus.  It  is  the  last  half  of  shimmering  September 
whose  delicious  zephyrs  float  the  gossamers  above  the  sea. 

All  the  world  knows  that  on  the  morrow  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  people  are  to  leave  the  Athenian  metropolis 
behind  them  and  commence  their  crusade  to  the  Eleusinian 
feast.  They  are  the  eligibles,  the  citizeus,  the  freemen. 
Not  a  being  from  among  the  laboring  and  lowly  class  can 
be  permitted  hardly  to  join  the  great  procession.  Fond  of 
privilege  but  barred  its  enjoyment  they  gather  in  their  best 
rags,  upon  the  scene  and  form  in  a  standing  multitude  along 
the  fine  of  march.  No  care  has  ever  been  bestowed  upon 
their  education  and  they  are  in  consequence,  rough,  per¬ 
haps  boisterous  and  insulting.  As  the  procession  moves 
along  they  pelt  the  crusaders  with  sticks  and  stones.9*  They 
feel  the  deep  disgrace  of  their  exclusion  and  are  animated 
with  unhappy  feelings  and  hatred  and  revenge.  They 
turn  their  eyes  toward  the  magnificent  temple  of  Megaron, 
built 94  by  their  own  hands,  of  marble  quarried  from  the 
rock  near  by.95  It  is  pre-eminently  the  most  majestio  work 
of  their  handicraft,  standing  solemn  and  alone  like  a  myster¬ 
ious  winged  creature,  stinking  awe  by  its  very  presence 
and  as  though  a  ghostly  apparition  which  had  surged  from 
the  dark  pits  of  the  sea.9*  To  the  left  loomed  up  a  view  of 

*3  When,  as  the  fable  goes,  Ceres  left  king  Celeus  and  went  to  the  old  temple, 
Iarube,  her  female  slave,  ridiculed  her.  Ever  afterwards  at  the  ayvppos  or  da/ 
of  march  at  the  crusades,  the  lower  or  excluded  classes  met  on  the  wayside  with 
stones,  clubs  and  ridicule. 

94  Consult  Eose,  Inscriptions  Grcecce  Vetustissimoe,  pp.  187-190. 

95  Idem,  p.  187,  note  ;  “E  duro  quodam  marmoris  genere  (quale  prope  Elea- 
siniem  invenitur.”)  likewise  the  description  of  the  great  temple,  by  Guhl 
and  Koner,  Life  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  pp.  47-49. 

e«  “Prope  oleam  erat  puteus  aquae  salsac  (OaXacraa  EptxOyU)  quam  sub  da¬ 
tum  noti  sui’do  murmore  fluctuum  instar  strepere,  narrabant  Athenienses. 
Ipse  silicet  Neptunus  hanc  voraginom  aperuerat  tridente,  cujus  adhuo  vestig¬ 
ium  in  eaxo  vivo  expressum  restabat.  De  fonte  salso  noli  dubitare.  Nam  et 
alius  in  arce  fons  aquae  amarae  qui  etesiarum  flatu  —  sttb  ortum  >  aniculae  — 
impleri,  postea  considers  solebat,  Clepsydra  dictus.”  Istcr.  Ap.  Schol.  Aria- 
ophania,  Av.  1693,  p.  63.  Though  this  superstition  may  have  been  based  at 
the  acropolis,  it  is  evident  that  the  horrors  of  it  came  from  old  Eleusis:  bo¬ 
lides  Erechtheia  was  the  priestess  in  charge  of  the  Eleusinian  Initiations. 


CRUSADERS  CLUBBED  AND  STONED.  131 


the  noble  pronaos  whose  fluted  columns  towered  high,  hold¬ 
ing  their  graceful  architraves,  and  culminating  in  those  ex¬ 
quisite  Corinthian  capitals  of  the  pilasters,  celebrated 
throughout  the  world  for  the  beauty  and  richness  of  their 
carvings.  Their  own  Ictinus,  guiding  their  own,  or  their 
ancestors’  toil  had  built  the  huge,  but  forbidding  telesterium 
and  conclave  where  those  mysterious  initiations  and  de¬ 
grees  were  conferred;  not  upon  them,  but  upon  those  born 
worthy  of  the  honor.  Their  own  Xenocles  was  the  master 
mason  who  had  led  them  through  a  labyrinth  of  toil  which 
produced  the  lordly,  throne-like  anactoron  were  dwelt  the 
immortal  Ceres.  Their  own  master  sculptor,  Metagenes  had 
directed  their  skillful  hands  through  the  mazes  of  sculpture 
which  produced  those  soft  and  charming  friezes,  and  reared 
the  upper  columns  on  which  rest  the  vast  entablatures  with 
their  architraves  and  frettings.  Led  by  such  masters  who 
have  come  down  to  fame  as  the  genius  of  classic  architec¬ 
ture,  wage-earners  had  delved  for  more  than  a  decade  of 
years  to  fashion  the  home  of  the  Mystagogoi ,  those  fav¬ 
ored  priests  who  repulsed  them  with  bitterest  scorn  and  all 
others  who  could  not  bring  proof  that  for  three  generations 
at  least,  they  had  never  disgraced  themselves  by  the  social 
blight  of  labor.  These  were  the  thanks  the  ancient  lowly 
received  for  building  those  enduring  and  exquisite  monu¬ 
ments  of  art. 

No  wonder  then,  that  as  the  procession  moved  down  from 
the  acropolis  to  the  sea,  the  outcasts,  uncultured,  unrefined, 
enslaved,  treated  the  haughty  initiates  with  brickbats  and 
jeers.  There  were  quarrels  about  this  grievance;  but  so 
dark  has  the  historian  been  upon  the  subject  that  we  are 
unable  to  obtain  further  positive  data  than  these  we  quote. 
But  what  we  do  know  sheds  light  upon  the  causes  of  a 
great  change  which  in  course  of  time  came  into  the  world; 
a  change  that  planted  the  seed  of  revolution.  It  was  a  re- 
ligio-political  state  based  upon  legalized  pretentions,  and 
assumed  absolute  rights  of  less  than  one-third  of  the  entire 
population  of  the  Indo  European  world  and  the  absolute  non¬ 
recognition  and  social,  political  and  hierarchical  ostracism 
of  the  other  two-thirds  of  the  population  on  whose  labor 
they  depended  for  their  food,  clothing,  shelter  and  worship. 

A  word  more  may  suffice  to  close  this  chapter.  Our  ob¬ 
ject  in  saying  so  much  has  been  to  exhibit  the  double  griev- 


182 


THE  MYSTERIES. 


ance  suffered  by  the  religious  as  well  as  the  social  and  eco¬ 
nomic  tyranny  of  ancient  society  over  the  laboring  people. 
From  the  time  labor  organizations  began,  until  the  era  of 
the  sophists,  no  one  can  tell  the  ages  that  elapsed.  The  so¬ 
phists  and  philosophers  began  their  work  in  Greece  five 
centuries  before  Christ.  They  were  revolutionists  so  far  as 
they  dared  go.  The  general  movement  of  Plato  and  Aris¬ 
totle  must  though  conflicting,  certainly  be  regarded  as  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  of  the  world.  It  worked  enorm¬ 
ously  in  the  direction  of  preparing  mankind  for  the  revolu¬ 
tion — the  change  from  a  condition  of  slavery  of  the  useful 
laboring  masses  to  one  of  complete  social,  political  and 
spiritual  recognition  and  equality.  Plato  was  a  slave 
owner.  He  was  so  proud  that  he  disdained  to  accept 
money  for  his  services  as  a  teacher,  preferring  to  accept 
presents  from  the  wealthy  young  students  under  his  charge 
— the  reverse  of  what  in  our  own  times  is  considered  pro¬ 
per.  Had  Plato  thus  lived  and  acted  just  before  our  mod¬ 
ern  war  of  the  rebellion  he  would  have  been  called  a  slave¬ 
driving  hypocrite  by  abolitionists  at  the  North,  and  a  cant 
ing  moralist  by  the  people  at  the  South.  He  was  of  neither 
party.  Even  the  workingmen  of  his  own  times  hated  him. 
What  he  did  was  probably  equilibrated  both  between  sym¬ 
pathy  and  diplomacy,  largely  tempered  by  sympathy  and 
conscience  and  on  the  whole,  working  all  the  radical  good 
which  the  times  would  permit.  The  world  is  better  for 
this  celebrated  advocate  of  slavery  having  lived ;  for  on  the 
whole,  though  he  could  not  see  any  way  possible  of  ex¬ 
punging  this  horrid  social  ulcer  of  slavery  from  his  republic, 
his  sympathy  got  the  better  of  acquisitiveness  and  like  all 
1  lie  teachers  of  that  era,  he  melted  the  brutal  spirit  which 
in  Sparta  instigated  such  inhuman  cruelties  toward  the  la¬ 
boring  class.  All  over  Attica  they  were  treated  with  com¬ 
parative  tenderness  and  consideration  and  though  they  suf¬ 
fered  the  grievances  we  have  described,  yet  they  shared  the 
age  of  philosophy  and  art  as  an  age  peculiarly  their  own 
in  organization  and  plenty.  It  was  their  Golden  age  of 
equality.  We  do  not  mean  exact  equality  or  similarity  in 
the  physical  and  intellectual  sense ;  for  nothing  could  be  more 
absurd.  We  mean  by  it  the  extinction  of  those  aristocratic 
lines  which  pride,  egoism  and  greed  had  so  long  held  as  a 
basis  of  religion  and  of  state. 


CHAPTER  Y. 


STRIKES  ANDUPRISINGS. 

GRIEVANCES  CONTINUED.  PLANS  OF  ESCAPE. 

First  Known  and  First  Tried  Plan  of  Salvation  was  that  of  Retal¬ 
iation — The  Slaves  test  the  Ordeal  of  Armed  Force — Irasci¬ 
bility  of  the  Working  Classes  at  length  arrayed  against  their 
Masters — Typical  Strikes  of  the  ancient  Workingmen — Their 
Inhuman  Treatment — Famous  Strike  at  the  Silver  Diggings 
of  Laurium — 20,000  Artisans  and  Laborers  quit  Work  in  a 
Body  and  go  over  to  the  Foes  of  their  own  Countrymen — 
The  G-reat  Peloponnesian  War  Decided  for  the  Spartans, 
against  the  Athenians  by  this  Fatal  Strike. 


In  ancient  Greece,  Sicily  and  Rome  there  occurred  great 
and  disastrous  strikes.  The  character  of  the  elements  caus¬ 
ing  these  disturbances  varied  greatly  from  that  of  the  mod¬ 
ern  strikers.  Quite  the  reverse  of  our  modern,  the  ancient 
strikers  were  either  slaves  or  freedmen  descended  from 
such,  and  in  a  condition  of  extreme  lowliness  but  often  so 
intelligent  that  notwithstanding  the  odds  against  them  they 
sometimes  out-generaled  their  masters  and  obtained  for  a 
long  period  of  time,  even  years,  against  wealth,  priesthood 
and  military  force.  The  reasons  for  this  we  have  already 
explained  but  may  appropriately  repeat.  The  slaves  and 
freedmen  were  mostly  men  of  their  masters’  own  blood. 
They  were  of  the  same  race,  color  and  natural  intelligence. 
They  used  the  same  languages,  were  accustomed  to  the 
same  roads  and  fields,  knew  the  cliffs,  grottoes,  forests  and 
jungles;  and  there  being  no  firearms  or  other  instruments 
of  destruction  which  in  our  modem  warfare  throw  the  bal¬ 
ance  of  power  into  the  hands  of  the  most  disciplined  rather 


184 


STRIKE  OF  THE  ANCIENT  MINERS. 


than  the  most  numerous,  they  sometimes  triumphed  for  a 
time  by  dint  of  numbers. 

During  the  Peloponnesian  war  a  great  strike  of  the  work¬ 
ing  people  occurred  in  and  about  the  silver  mines  of  Laur- 
ium,1  B.  C.  413.  It  may  be  well  here  to  enumerate  some 
of  the  grievances  inciting  them  to  this  desperate  resolve 
which  they  knew  perfectly  well  beforehand,  would,  unless 
they  succeeded,  terminate  in  their  death  by  tortures  of  the 
most  inhuman  artifices  the  maddened  cruelty  of  greedy 
money-getters  could  invent.  Nearly  all  the  slaves  and  other 
working  people,  laborers  and  artificers  engaged  in  this  enor¬ 
mous  strike,  were  intelligent  people.  Some  were  persons 
who  were  slaves  by  the  misfortune  of  birth  ; 1 *  others  were 
prisoners  of  war  reduced  by  violence  to  slavery.  Still 
others  were  slaves  as  merchandise  brought  to  the  mines  by 
the  vicissitudes  of  traffic  ;  and  lastly  and  worst,  there  were 
large  numbers  who  were  convicts,  condemned  to  work  in 
the  mines  under  the  lash  of  brutal  hireling  overseers  of  con¬ 
tractors*  who  worked  these  mines  on  leases  from  the  gov¬ 
ernment  to  which  they  paid  one  twentieth  of  the  proceeds. 
It  was  a  great  grievance  to  the  intelligent  workingmen  to 
be  goaded  by  the  knowledge  that  he  was  a  social  monstros¬ 
ity.4  Men  now  recoil  at  the  sight  of  a  slave  because  he  is 
the  rare  relic  of  an  institution  which  human  wisdom  and 
sympathy  have  outstripped,  outlived,  outgrown  in  theglori- 

l  Thucydides  De  Bello -Peloponesiaco,  VII.  27 :  “A *«ovro  Si  Kal  ®paicup  rup 
paxaipo^opup  rot)  Ata/cov  yevovs  es  ra?  Adrji'as  ne\raoTal  ip  tu  axny  &epei  to vrcf 
Tpta/cocrtot  Kal  xt'Aiot,  ovf  iSeL  tu  Arj/aocrderei  es  rrjv  2t/ceAi'av  (vfX7r\eiP-  oi  S’  'A&qp- 
mlot,  o>s  varepop  J)kop ,  Supoovpto  avrovt  iraAcp  odep  JjAdop  es  ©p/j/ojv  airoirefiireiv. 
r b  yap  ex*<-v  wpo s  top  si c  Trj?  Ae/ceAetas  woAe/xov  avrou?  7roAvT*A«s  etp cuVero-  Spa\- 
firjp  yap  T/js  rj/aepas  «/cacrros  eA ap-fiapep.  eneiSi)  yap  r)  Ae/ce'Aeta  Tb  pep  irpUTOP  vno 
iracrrjs  Trjs  arpanas  r<j>  de'pet  toi/t<}>  rei^iodelVa,  vcrrepop  8e  opovpats  a7rb  tup 
w6\tuv  Kara  SiaSo\ht'  XP°V0V  enLOVcra is  rp  x.upt}  enuKelTO,  7roAAa  e^Aairre  rows  ’Adr) 
patois?  Kal  iv  rots  irptoTots  xPrIP-°-T0>v^  T>  ohedpu  /cat  apdpunup  tfdop$  i/ca/twcre  Ta 
wpayp-ara.  nporepop  p-ev  yap  jSpa^elat  ytyi'opeat  ai  «o-|3oAai  top  aAAov  xP^vov 
Tys  yr}?  airohavsip  ov/c  ski bKvov  tots  8s  £vpexup  eniKaih)p.epuv,  /cat  ore  pep  /cat 
irkeopup  emoprup,  ore  8’  avay/oj?  tijs  icnjs  ^povpas  Karadeovoris  re  Tr\p 
/cat  Afltrreias  noiovp.eprjs,  /3a<rtAeto?  re  7rapOTO?  row  tup  AaKeSaipopiup  *Ayt8os,  o? 
ovk  i k  irapeyov  top  no\epop  eirotetTO,  ueyaAa  oi  ’  Adr/paloi  e&XamovTO'  ttjs  t«  yap 
X<opa s  aTracr/js  etTTeprjPTO  /cat  auSpocnoSup  n\eop  f/  8vo  p-vpiaSc?  ^vTop.oAsj/ceoat',  /cat 
tov'tov  to  7roAi>  /typos'  xetpoTe^vat,  npojZaTa.  re  napra  a7roAwAet  /cat  VTrotJvyia-  i7riri 
re,  oo’ijp.epat  e£e\avPOPTo)P  tup  inneup  Jrpos  tc  ty)p  Ae/ceActat'  KaraSpouas  noiovpepup 
Kal  Kara  tyjp  x^Pav  pvAacooPTuy,  oi  pep  anexuhovpro  ep  yfj  awo/cpoTy  T«  ica- 
^t//'«x«bs  TaXainupouPTei ,  ot  8’  eTiTptoa'/cot'TO. 

Xenophon  De  Vectigal.  IV.  25. 

fiOranier  de  Cassagaac,  Illstotre  des  Clastes  Ouvrxires ,  chap.  ilL 

*  Plutarch  Nvcias  and  Crassus  Compared ,  1. 

4  Drumann,  Arbeiler  und  Communislen  in  Griechenland  und  Rom,  S.  24; 
Bhckh.  Public  Economies  of  the  Athenians,  ;».  263,  ior  instances  of  men  own-' 
lAg  great  numbers  of  slaves ;  See  h  o  Bhokh  s  Laurische  Silberbergwerke  in  At- 

ttka,  passim. 


NO  SUNDAY  FOR  WORKINGMEN . 


135 


ous  race  of  enlightenment.  Even  at  that  early  age  the 
slave’s  servitude  was  the  source  of  his  own  intelligent  dis¬ 
gust  ;  for  covered  as  he  was  with  the  indelible  brands  and 
scars  of  S}Stematic  mutilation,  and  decrepit  in  premature 
age  through  blows  and  strains  of  violence  and  overwork,  his 
mind  remained  unimpaired,  often  edged  to  consciousness  of 
its  own  incompatibility  with  this  state  of  degradation.  The 
poor  creatures  were  never  allowed  to  eat  white  bread.* 
There  were  no  Sundays  for  them.  Of  the  365  days  they 
were  forced  to  delve  360.  Sometimes  the  government 
owned  them  and  subbed  them  with  the  mines  themselves  to 
the  contractors,  following  the  plan  of  Xenophon,7  who  some¬ 
times  thus  worked  great  numbers  at  a  time.  Often,  how¬ 
ever,  the  rich  contractor  himself  owned  laboring  men  with 
whom  to  operate  the  mines.  Thus  Nicias  owned  a  thou¬ 
sand  slaves,8  Mnason  also  owned  a  thousand.*  The  ancients 
appear  to  have  had  a  species  of  passion  for  seeing  acts  of 
brutality  and  cruelty. 

Wakes  are  of  great  antiquity.  Originally  they  were  pub¬ 
lic  fights  on  the  occasion  of  the  death  of  an  important  mem¬ 
ber  of  a  gens  family,  in  which  the  combatants  were  his 
sl&ves  so  unfortunate  as  to  have  survived  him.  All  the  fam¬ 
ily,  its  slaves  and  their  children,  perhaps  also  the  community 
not  allied  by  blood,  were  summond  to  see  what  in  our  re¬ 
fined  age  would  not  only  be  repellent  cruelties,  but  intol¬ 
erable  ones — a  fight  to  the  death,  of  slaves  of  the  deceased, 
with  daggers  and  clubs.10  The  first  combat  on  record  of 
this  kind  occurred  in  B.  C.  264,  arranged  by  the  brothers 
Brutus.11  But  authors  agree  that  the  practice  comes  from 
much  more  remote  antiquity ;  and  mention  of  it  is  made 
here  to  prepare  the  reader  to  understand  some  of  the  causes 

»  Granier,  de  Cass.  Hist.  Ouvri'eres,  p.  98, wlio  gives  references. 

«  Bficher  Auf stands  der  unfreien  Arbeiter,  S.  96 ;  Xenoph.  Memorab.  111.  0,  12. 
For  360  days  in  the  year  those  poor  working  people  male  and  female,  had 
to  drudge.  Xenophon  4,  16;  Bdokh,  Silberbergwerke,  S.  125. 

"Xenophon,  De  Vedigal.  cap.  iv. 

8  Bucher,  Aufsldnde,  etc.  S.  96;  Drumann  Arbeiter  und  Communisten,  §3. 
11-23. 

9  Bbckh,  Public  Economies  of  the  Athenians,  p.  263.  The  celebrated  plan  of 
Xenophon  for  replenishing  the  Athenian  treasury  {De  Vedigal.  cap,  iv.)  was 
to  have  the  state  put  60  000  of  its  own  slaves  on  the  state  silver  mines  of 
Laurium.  to  be  !eu>ed  to  contractors.  He  even  gives  figures  on  the  prestun 
able  inc  ome  frofn  this  p  >in  of  relief  to  the  state. 

Jo  Frie  llander,  Darstellungen  au  der  Sitlengeschichte  Roms,  II.  216. 

u  Gulvi  and  Koaer,  Life  of  Vie  Greeks  and  Romans.  We  give  references  to 
modern  authors  so  that  readers  not  conversant  with  the  original  languages 
may  get  them  and  satisfy  themselves 


136 


STRIKE  AT  THE  SILVER  MINES. 

lurking  at  the  bottom  of  the  evil  of  ancient  strikes  and  up¬ 
risings.  Gibbon  relates  the  horrible  story  of  the  Syracusian, 
L.  Domitius.13  One  of  the  poor,  innocent  slaves  during  hia 
prsetorship,  one  day  while  assisting  in  the  chase,  killed  a 
wild  boar  of  enormous  size  and  very  dangerous.  The  dar¬ 
ing  deed  got  noised  about  until  it  reached  the  ear  of  Dom- 
itius  who  ordered  the  slave  to  be  brought  to  him  as  he  de¬ 
sired  to  see  so  brave  a  man.  The  poor  creature  appeared 
before  this  fellow,  humbly  expecting  a  trifle  of  praise  so  sel¬ 
dom  the  lot  of  the  Syracusian  slave.  To  his  horror,  how¬ 
ever,  this  monster’s  first  question  was,  what  kind  of  weapon 
or  means  were  employed  by  him  in  performing  the  deed. 
The  answer  was  a  javelin.  “Are  you  not  aware  that  the  jave¬ 
lin  is  a  weapon  for  gentlemen  ;  and  that  for  so  mean  a  crea¬ 
ture  as  a  slave  to  use  the  weapons  of  men,  is  death  ?  ”  Turn¬ 
ing  to  his  soldiers  he  said,  “  take  this  slave  away  and  crucify 
him.”  The  trembling  wretch  was  actually  crucified  upon 
the  spot.  The  heart  sickens  at  the  contemplation  of  our 
descent  from  such  a  type  of  monsters ! 

Bucher  notes13  that  single  contractors  often  worked  300 
to  600  slaves  in  the  silver  mines  of  Laurium  and  that  con¬ 
victs  who  were  government  property  were  sometimes  sold 
to  the  contractors  who  exploited  their  labor  in  their  own 
name.14  Sometimes  intelligent  men  in  those  days  were  half 
slaves  and  half  free,  being  enfeoffed  by  livery  of  seizin,  no 
doubt,  if  unambitious  of  freedom,  enjoying  thereby  some 
advantages  over  those  entirely  out  in  the  competitive  world. 
Such  men  were  paid  a  per  diem,  varying  from  3  to  7  oboli , 
or  from  10  to  19  cents  for  their  labor.16 

Callias  the  friend  of  Cimon,  B.  C.  460,  became  wealthy, 
managing  mines.  All  or  nearly  all  the  mines  were,  with 
the  ancients,  the  property  of  the  state.  The  state  contracted 
the  working  of  the  mines  to  enterprising  business  men  who 
often  hired  slaves  to  do  the  work.  These  contractors  were 
often  men  of  noble  blood.  The  sen«e  of  the  social  structure 
being  against  conducting  or  managing  one’s  own  business. 

12  Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  Vol.  I.  p.  48.  N.T.,  I860: 
Bbckh,  Silberbergwerke,  S.  122-3,  adds  testimony  to  this  hardheartedness  of 
the  ancients,  referring  to  Plato  who,  for  his  perfect  state,  wanted  only  Greeks 
exempt  from  slavery. 

13  Aufstdnde  etc.,  S.  90. 

m  Bobkh,  Abhandlimg  der  Historisch-Philologischen  Classe  der  Preussischae 
Akademie  der  Wiessenchaften,  1814-15. 

16  Id.  Public  Econ.  of  Athenians,  p.  164. 


STATISTICS  OF  ANCIENT  WAGES. 


137 


Only  the  slaves  and  other  workmen,  those  who  actually  per* 
formed  the  work,  were  doomed  to  suffer  the  odium  of  labor. 
Any  business  man  who  could  get  a  bond,  could  take  from 
the  state  a  portion  or  the  whole  of  a  mine;  and  sometimes 
even  the  slaves  themselves  were  to  be  had  of  the  state.  In 
this  case,  the  complete  outfit  was  contracted  for  by  the  in¬ 
dividual,  who  had  no  further  care  than  to  manipulate  pro¬ 
ducts  and  gains.  Callias  and  Cimon  had  either  contracts 
for  or  ownership  in  the  mines  of  silver  at  Laurium,  located 
to  the  southeastward  of  Athens  about  30  miles.16  Their 
names  appear  also,  but  vaguely  in  connection  with  the 
Pangaeus  mines  in  Thrace.  It  is  known  that  Thucidydes 
the  celebrated  historian  owned  mining  property  in  Mace¬ 
donia.  He  was  a  rich  slave  owner  and  optimate.  One 
Sosias  a  Thracian  contractor  hired  from  Nicias  a  thousand 
slaves,  at  an  obolus  per  day  each.17  Hyponicus  rented  or 
hired  as  many  as  600  slaves  to  these  contractors  and  re¬ 
ceived,  as  Xenophon  tells  us,  a  mina  daily  for  their  labor. 
Philemonides  for  300  slaves  got  half  a  mina.18 

Public  servants  were  not  always  free.  Wages  in  the  time 
of  Pericles  stood  about  as  follows:19  for  a  common  laborer 
who  carried  dirt,  3  oboli ,20  or  10  J  cents  per  day.  A  gar¬ 
dener  got  14  cents;  a  sawyer  of  wood,  one  drachm,  or  19 
cents;  a  carpenter  received  sometimes  as  high  as  17J  cents 
while  millers  in  the  grain  mills  received  15  to  18  cents. 
Scribes  or  copyists  no  more.  The  architect  of  the  temple 
of  Minerva  got  no  more  than  the  stone  sawyer  and  others 
only  as  much  as  the  common  laborer.  His  name  was  Polias. 
Boeckh  says  he  received  one  drachm  or  exactly  17^  cents. 
The  hypogrammateus  or  secretary  to  the  superintendent  of 
public  buildings  got  only  5  oboli  or  about  15  cents. 

The  fares  for  traveling  conveyances  were  also  very  low. 
In  fact,  the  clerks  and  public  officials  of  every  kind  were 
government  subjects  who  received  low  salaries  and  worked 
long  hours.  Their  life  was  a  constant  drudgery.  The  su¬ 
perintendents  themselves  were  officers  of  family  or  blood. 
They  were  citizens;  but  the  dignity  of  their  position  re¬ 
strained  them  from  receiving  any  recompense. 

Plutarch,  Cimon .  Cornelius  Nepos.  Cimon;  “non  tam  generosua  quam 
pecuniosus,  qui  magnas  pecunias  ex  metal  lis  fecerat.” 

17  Xenophon,  De  Vectgal.  §.  4,  14;  Plutarch,  Nicias ,  4. 

18  Xenophon.  Id.  1,  c.  §  16.  inBbokh,  Pub.  Econ.  Aihen.  p,  1®4. 

50  An  obolus  was  cts,  a  drachma  10. 


138 


STRIKE  AT  THE  SILVER  MINES. 


Thus  in  Greece,  Rome  and  everywhere  throughout  an¬ 
tiquity,  such  were  the  oppressive  conditions  that  the  intelli¬ 
gent  among  the  working  classes,  goaded  by  their  sufferings, 
w*ere  on  the  alert,  sometimes  for  revenge,  sometimes  for 
objects  of  amelioration,  but  oftener  from  sheer,  reckless 
despair,  and  ready  to  strike  out  in  bloody  rebellion  against 
their  master. 

With  this  statement  on  general  causes  of  strikes  we  pro¬ 
ceed  with  the  story  of  the  greatest  of  all,  belonging  purely 
to  this  category  of  human  resistance,  to  be  found  either  in 
ancient  or  modern  times.21  It  may  be  plausibly  conjectured 
that  this  great  strike  in  turning  the  tables  against  the  Athe¬ 
nians  and  thus  deciding  the  celebrated  Peloponnesian  war 
against  them  and  the  little  democracy  that  had  grown  up 
in  the  Athenian  civilization  and  refinement,  went  far  toward 
suppressing  the  true  progress  of  the  human  race.” 

The  silver  mines  of  Laurium,  30  miles  south  from  the 
city  of  Athens,  were  among  the  resources  of  Athenian  wealth. 
They  belonged  to  the  government.  The  methods  of  ob¬ 
taining  the  precious  metal  was  by  arduous  labor,  without 
much  of  the  modern  machinery.  Diodorus  describing  the 
Egyptian  mines  between  Captos  and  Cosseir,  pictures  the 
sufferings  of  the  poor  convicts  and  barbarians  working 
there; 23  and  Bucher  says  that  was  also  the  case  with  those 
working  the  Laurian  mines.24  According  to  this,  men  and 
women  in  great  numbers  who  had  committed  some  crime” 
against  the  state  or  otherwise,  were  dragged  into  the  subter¬ 
ranean  cavern,  stripped  entirely  of  their  clothing,  their 
bodies  painted,  their  legs  loaded  with  chains  and  in  this 
frightful  condition,  set  at  work  drilling  the  rock,  breaking 
it  in  pieces  and  carrying  it  to  the  mouth  of  the  shaft.  Out¬ 
side  the  mine  were  smitheries,  machine  shops  for  making 
stamping  mills,  water  tanks  and  courses  for  washing  the 
metal,  wagon  shops  for  making  and  repairing  vehicles  of 
conveyance  and  other  conveniences  necessary  for  so  great 
an  industry,  employing  great  numbers  of  slaves  and  freed- 
men  for  carrying  on  the  works. 

n  The  greater  uprisings  are  known,  not  as  strikes  but  as  servile  wars;  al¬ 
though  we  sometimes  confound  them  with  strikes 

22  Drumann,  Arbeiter  und  Cummunisten  in  Griechenland  und  Rom,  S.  64. 

23Diodorus  Bibliotheca  Historica,  V.  38. 

24  Bucher,  Aufstdnde  der  unfveien  Arb.  S.  96. 

a®  Compare  Plutarch .  Nicias  and  Crassus  Comp.  Init.  Plutarch  here  avers 
that  the  workmen  under  Nicias  were  often  malefactors  and  convicts. 


BOTE  SEXES  WORKED  NAKED  IN  THE  MINES.  13$ 


These  mines  of  Laurium  were  in  operation  when  the  Pe¬ 
loponnesian  war  broke  oat,  B.  C.  432,  between  the  Spartans 
and  Athenians,  which  lasted  27  years,  Thucidydes  speaks 
as  though  the  offer  held  out  to  the  workmen  employed  as 
Blaves  by  the  Athenians,  of  18  cents  per  day  uniformly,  was 
a  very  tempting  one.26  They  were  poor  dependents,  some 
slaves,  some  freedmen,  some  convicts,  subjected  to  abuse, 
thrown  pell-mell  together,  driven  to  hard  work,  poorly  fed, 
those  within  the  mines,  naked  and  suffering,  and  utterly 
destitute  of  that  feeling  known  to  us  as  patriotism,  although 
many  of  them  were  Athenians.27  Daring  this  obstinate 
struggle  the  Lacedsemonian  forces,  B.  C.  413,  approached 
as  near  to  Athens  as  Decelea,  a  garrisoned  frontier  town 
in  Bcetia  held  by  them,  where  they  established  themselves 
over  against  the  Athenian  lines.  The  distance  between 
Decelea  on  the  borders  of  Boetia  and  Athens  is  only  about 
20  miles.  The  Athenian  ergasteria  or  workshops  were 
manned  in  part  by  slaves.28  So,  whether  in  the  shops  and 
arsenals  at  Athens,  or  in  the  silver  mines  of  Laurium,  both 
of  which,  during  war  time,  were  indispensable  for  supply¬ 
ing  money  and  arms,  the  sinews  of  production  were  not 
quickened  by  that  peculiarly  inspiriting  urgent  known  to  us 
as  patriotism.  Labor  hated  alike  home,  fatherland  and  em¬ 
ployer.  When  war  broke  out  the  laborer,  instead  of  turn¬ 
ing  his  power  and  genius  to  swift  production  of  engines  for 
hurling  missiles  of  destruction  among  the  invaders  of  his 
country,  sought  in  the  vortex  of  fierce  disturbance,  some 
fissure  of  retreat  from  the  monstrous  cruelties  of  bondage. 

Thus  in  this  pivotal  contest  between  the  Spartans  and 
Athenians,  compared  with  the  Spartans’  treatment  of  the 
Helots  or  Lacedaemonian  slaves,  the  Athenians  with  all  the 
horrors  that  have  been  pictured,  were  mild,  we  find  the 
grievance  intensified  beyond  endurance.  Compared  with 
Spartan  suavity,  philosophy  and  moral  advancement,  the 
Athenians  were  as  civilization  to  barbarism ;  for  Sparta  had 
never  questioned  the  claims  of  Pagan  aristocracy  and  Ly- 
curgus  had  built  upon  it  in  all  its  austere  presumptiveness  a 
ring  or  community  of  about  one-third  the  population  and 
damned  the  remaining  two-thirds  to  a  stage  of  slavery 

26  Thucydides.  De  Bello  Peloponnesiaco,  VII.  27,  already  quoted,  p.  107. 

27  Biicher.  Aufstdnde  d.  unfreien  Arb.  S.  21. 

28  Drumann;  Arb.  u.  Communisten  in  Griechenland  u.  Rom,  S.  64j  “Aucb 
In  den  Fabriken,  epyaerrepia,  sah  man  *ur  Solaven,” 


140 


STRIKE  AT  THE  STLVER  MINES. 


very  little  better  than  that  of  naked  convicts  described  by 
Diodorus  in  the  gold  mines  of  Egypt.29  Yet  notwithstand* 
ing  the  brutal  example  the  poor  slaves  had  just  witnessed, 
of  Spartan  treachery,  in  assassinating  2,000  brave  helots 
a  few  years  before,80  some  knowledge  of  which  they  must 
certainly  have  possessed 81  we  find  the  poor  Athenian  work¬ 
men  readily  accepting  an  offer  by  the  Spartans  and  joining 
them  in  great  numbers  against  their  own  fatherland. 

Undoubtedly  this  was  a  very  dangerous  exploit  of  the 
strikers  and  could  not  have  succeeded  without  some  organ¬ 
ization.  But  wre  are  left  in  the  dark  regarding  most  of  the 
details.  No  doubt  the  near  approach  of  the  Lacedaemonian 
forces  and  the  demoralization  of  the  Athenians  as  well  as 
their  ingratitude,  together  with  the  arrogance  of  Cimon 
and  the  revenges  of  Alcibiades,  might  have  had  much  to 
do  with  it. 

This  great  strike  must  have  been  plotted  by  the  men 
themselves.  We  are,  through  the  two  or  three  brief  refer¬ 
ences  to  it,  given  us  by  the  historians,32  left  to  infer  that  it 
must  have  been  well  concerted,  violent  and  swift.  The  in¬ 
ference  is  unequivocal  that  in  413,  B.  C.  20,000  miners,  me¬ 
chanics,  teamsters  and  laborers  suddenly  struck  work;  and 
at  a  moment  of  Athens’  greatest  peril,  fought  themselves 
loose  from  their  masters  and  their  chains.  These  20,000 
workmen  made  a  desperate  bolt  for  the  Spartan  garrison 
newly  established  at  Decelea  on  the  borders  of  Bcetia.  The 
strike  must  have  been  the  more  desperate  on  account  of 
the  offers  held  out  to  them  by  the  enemy.  One  of  the  offers 
was  that  they  should  be  provided  with  work  which  they 
should  perform  on  their  own  reckoning;  but  that  they 
should  pay  only  a  part  of  it  to  their  masters  or  employers. 
At  this  lay,  by  industry  and  patience  they  could  not  only 
live  better  but  could  lay  by  a  certain  sum  with  which  to 


29  Diodorus,  Bib.  Hist.  III.  11,  V,  38 

so  Thucydides,  IV.  80,  massacre  of  the  Helots,  B.  C.  424,  tit  supr,  p.  106  sq 

31  Witne  s  the  intimate  undercunen;  oi  u;  ephony  uuiing  the  great  up- 
rh'ngs  ol  Eunus,  Arisonicus,  Athenion  and  Spartaius;  and  the  same  wai 
:Cp  ated  during  the  anti-slavery  rebellion  in  the  United  States,  with  same 
u  y  terion  lv  a’Qurate  information. 

32  Thucydides,  De  Bello  Pel.  VI.  91.  VIII.  4,  VII.  27;  Xenophon,  D • 
Vecligal.  4  25;  Drumann,  Arb.  u.  Comm.  S.  64;  Biicher,  AufstcL/lde.  un- 
fre  en  Aibeiter,  S.  21:  “Im  Jahre  vor  Chr.  413  schlugen  sioh  20,000  A  hen- 
isehe  Fabrikarbeiter  zu  den  Lakedaimoniern,  ein  schwerer  Schlag  fiir  den 
L  u  is  he  a  Bergbau.”  Bockh,  Laurische  Silberbtrgwerke,  S.  90-1,  ftlgo  men- 
tiuUB  it. 


THE  STRIKE  A  RECOGNIZED  SUCCESS. 


141 


bay  themselves  free.  Unaccustomed  to  plenty  and  sud¬ 
denly  thus  provided  with  enough  to  eat  and  drink,  they 
naturally  gave  themselves  up  to  indulgence  to  some  extent 
for  Dr.  Drumann  tells  us  that  many  of  the  slaves  lived  bet¬ 
ter  than  the  freedmen  themselves,  though  we  have  no  ac- 
count  of  their  dissipating.88  The  statement  of  Dr.  Bucher, 
that  this  strike  of  the  workmen  of  Athens  was  a  heavy  blow 
to  the  mining  operations  of  the  Laurian  silver  diggings,  con¬ 
firms  the  importance  of  this  immense  uprising  in  Attica. 
The  sudden  loss  of  20,000  workmen,  inured  to  the  hard¬ 
ships  of  mining  life,  and  drilled  to  the  mechanical  nice¬ 
ties  of  the  assays  for  the  money  supply,  of  the  wagon 
works,  and  of  the  armories  at  Athens  where  most  of  the 
sabers,  slings,  daggers,  javelins,  campaign  wagons  and 
other  impedimenta  of  war  were  constructed,  is  known 
to  have  been  a  serious  set-back  to  the  progress  of  the  Pe¬ 
loponnesian  conflict.  But  while  it  disheartened  the  Athen¬ 
ians  it  proportionately  encouraged  and  delighted  the  Lace¬ 
daemonians  ;  and  as  the  latter  were  not  of  the  party  of  pro¬ 
gress  but  engaged  in  invidious  activity  against  the  Athen¬ 
ians,  at  that  time  the  most  democratic  and  advanced  peo¬ 
ple  in  the  world,  it  acted  directly  against  the  evolution  of 
mankind.  No  one  pretends  to  deny  that  the  Spartans, 
boasting  of  the  hegemony  of  their  youth  and  their  conse¬ 
quent  warlike  prowess,  were  mad  with  jealousy  against  the 
wondrous  work  of  Athenian  philosophy,  letters,  fine  art  and 
polish  ; — the  very  adornments,  theoretical  and  mechanical, 

**  Drumann,  Arbeiter  und  Communisten  in  Griechenland  und  Rom,  S.  64.  “Der 
grbsste  Theil  der  20,000,  welche  im  peloponnesischen  Kriege  in  Attica  zu  der 
Bpartanischen  Besatzung  in  Decelia  entliefen,  kam  aus  Fabriken.  Mitunter 
wurde  ihnen  gestattet,  fllr  eigene  Kechnung  zu  arbeiten,  und  ein  Gewisses  tlieil  an 
ibre  Herren  abzugeben ;  so  konnten  fleissige  und  sparsame  eine  Summe  eriibrigen 
und  sich  loskaufen;  manche  machten  mekr  Aufwand  als  die  Freien.”  Bucher 
■ays,  S.  21:  “  Wo  viele  Sklaven  derselben  Nationalist  in  einer  Stadt  zusammen 
lebten,  sagt  Platon,  (legg.  VI.  p.  777),  geschahe  grosses  Unheil,  wasdoch  nur  auf 
wirliche  Aufstande  mit  all  ihren  Graueln  zu  deuten  ist.”  So  also  at  Rome 
the  feeling  was  against  the  poorest  class  and  aggravated  by  a  fear  of  their  muti¬ 
nies.  Cato  the  elder  was  a  hard-hearted  slave-driver  as  Livy,  (XXXIX.  40), 
coolly  hints,  without  seeming  to  imagine  that  brutal  treatment  of  a  menial 
was  inhumanity.  Macrobius,  (Satumaliorum  Libri,  I,  xi.  2,  25-30,)  says  that  in 
Borne  so  great  was  the  cruelty  of  citizens  to  the  laboring  class  that  God  himself 
protested:  “Audi  igitnr  quanta  indignatio  de  serui  supplicio  caelum  pene- 
trauerit.  anno  enim  post  Romam  conditam  quadringentesimo  septuagesimo 
quarto  Autranius  quidam  Maximus  seruuin  suum  ueberatum  patibuloque  con- 
■trictum  ante  spetaculi  commissionem  per  circum  egit:  ob  quam  causamindig- 
natus  Iuppiter  Annio  cuidam  per  quietem  imperauit  ut  senatui  nuntiaret  non 
■ibi  placuisse  plenum  crudelitatis  admissum.”  Thus  cruelty  with  other  griev¬ 
ances  caused  them  to  revolt.  Of  course,  those  who  were  already  free  wei’e  still 
more  fortunate.  It  is  curious  that  the  law  was  such  that  the  slaves  remained 
•laves  even  after  winning  the  strike. 


142 


STRIKE  AT  THE  SILVER  MINES. 


which  have  in  course  of  subsequent  ages  succeeded  in  rid¬ 
ding  the  world  of  slavery.  Yet  we  find  in  this  great  strike 
20,000  workingmen  revolting  and  turning  their  muscle 
against  their  own  comparatively  progressive  institutions, 
thus  doing  all  in  their  power  to  aid  the  Spartans  in  subdu¬ 
ing  this  growing  Athenian  intelligence.  Of  course  we  can¬ 
not  blame  them  for  resistance  ;  for  it  raised  them,  although 
it  doomed  their  cause.  The  brilliant  Athenians  were,  after 
a  struggle  of  27  years,  defeated  and  the  Spartans  succeeded 
in  re-establishing  the  old,  jealous,  conservative  paganism — 
that  deadliest  enemy  of  freedom,  the  nursery  of  slavery,  the 
home  of  priestcraft  and  of  aristocracy,  ever  inculcating 
belief  in  divine  right  of  few  against  many. 

Not  far  from  Decilea  on  the  Athenian  seacoast,  about  five 
miles  to  the  southeastward  of  the  Laurian  silver  mines,  was 
the  little  mining  city  of  Sunion.  There  was  an  old  castle 
at  this  place,  which,  like  that  in  the  forest  of  Sicily,84  was 
under  the  aegis  of  a  powerful  divinity  who  recognized  the 
workingman  and  protected  him,  whatever  his  deeds  or  his 
guilt,  so  long  as  he  could  hold  himself  within  its  walls. 

It  was  about  the  close  of  the  first  Labor  war  of  Eunus  of 
Sicily  that  another  enormous  and  horribly  bloody  strike  oc¬ 
curred  in  the  mines  of  Laurium.85  The  men  undertook  and 
carried  out  the  same  plan  as  that  of  J)ecelia,  and  struck  work 
to  the  number  of  more  than  a  thousand.88  It  must  have 
been  a  memorable  and  shockingly  sanguinary  event.  Sun- 
ion  was  the  stronghold  of  the  silver  mines.81  By  the  ap¬ 
pearance  of  things  as  presented  to  us  in  the  meagre  details 
given,  no  improvement  for  the  comfort  of  the  miners  had 
ever  been  introduced  since  the  great  strike  of  Decelea.  The 
poor  creatures  were  still  suffering  under  the  lash,  delving 
360  out  of  the  365  days  in  the  year,  naked,  men  and  women  in¬ 
discriminately  tugging  under  the  clubs  of  heartless  foremen 
and  directors,  the  same  as  ages  before,88  That  these  poor 

84  See  Second  Sicilian  Labor  War,  chap.  xi.  where  it  lfl  related  that  the  strikers 
were  actually  shielded  by  the  god  of  the  castle,  and  no  one  dared  to  disturb  them 
until  they  had  organized  that  mighty  rebellion. 

86  A  full  account  of  this  strike-war  occurs  in  chap.  x.  pp.  201-241  q.  v. 

88  Augustin  d*  civ.  d.  in.  26,  tells  us  also  of  a  great  uprising  of  the  miners 
In  Macedonia. 

37  Bockh,  Lawische  Silberhergwerk,  8,  90. 

38  Athenaeus,  Deipnosophistce,  VI.  p.  271:  quoting  E.  Poseidonius,  the  contin- 
nator  of  the  Histories  of  Polybius  says:  “  Kai  a i  rroAAai  51  airai  ’Am/cai  fivpiaSet 
rwv  oik«t«p  SeSepevcu  eipya^ovro  ra  ju.eVa.AAa.  noaetSumoi  yovv  o’  <tn\6aro<l>ot  Kai 
anooravTaf  <t>fia \.v  air ous  KaTO.<J)oyevaat  p.iv  roiif  ivi  ru»y  p-tra^Awy  <£i>Aa/cas,  tcaraAa- 


BLOODY  MUTINY  AT  SUNION. 


143 


people,  many  of  whom  were  freedmen  had  their  labor  or¬ 
ganizations  is  proved  beyond  a  shadow  of  doubt.  Bockh 
comments  upon  the  passage  of  Demosthenes  against  Pan- 
taetus,89  showing  a  quarrel  of  the  contractors  in  the  mines 
with  the  trade  unions.  These  quarrels  were  frequent  occur¬ 
rences  in  th  ose  days.  It  might  have  been  some  similar  trouble 
that  caused  the  uprisings  we  are  describing,  although  it  oc¬ 
curred  in  later  times. 

More  than  a  thousand  of  the  miners  one  day  simultane¬ 
ously  struck  work  and  proceeded  in  a  body  to  the  protect¬ 
ing  castle  of  Sunion  where  they  claimed  and  secured  pro¬ 
tection  from  the  divine  guardian  that  watched  over  this  holy 
institution.40 

Should  any  one  complain  of  us  for  dragging  religion  into 
our  history  of  the  ancient  lowly,  their  folly  will  here  be 
seen.  It  is  another  of  the  numerous  instances  showing  that 
labor,  politics  and  religion  were  all  institutions  of  govern- 


picrd at  M  ttjv  ini  Zoim dip  axpbi toXiv  *ai  ini  no\vv  \povov  nopdr/aai  r^p  'Arrni^. 
Ovro?,  STiv  6  Kcupos,  ore  tcai  iv  ’S.meXiqr)  Seyrepa  rtav  SovXutv  anoaracrif  iyivt to.  Sm 
also  Bbckh,  S.  123. 

«*  See  Demosth,  Agt.  Pant.  966-7.  The  eranoi  mentioned  were  the  veritable 
trade  unions,  corresponding  with  the  Roman  collegia,  the  French  jurandee  and  the 
English  trade  unions.  The  thiasoi,  as  we  persistently  explain,  were  that  branch 
of  the  eranoi  which  had  in  charge  the  entertainments  and  solemnities.  We  have 
already  shown  that  slaves  often  belonged  to  the  unions.  Foucart,  (Association*  Ro- 
ligieusues  Chez  Lei  Greet,  p.  121  and  219,  inscription  No.  38),  mentions  an  important 
inscription  showing  that  one  Xanthos  a  Lycian  slave  belonging  to  a  Roman 
named  Caius  Orbius,  founded  a  temple  at  the  mines  and  consecrated  it  to  the 
moon  god.  This  moon  god  in  return  for  the  favor  protected  the  slave*.  The 
al&b  bears  evidence  from  which  we  quote  the  first  six  lineB  as  follows; 

EavOos  Avkios  Tacov  ’Opdiou  KaOeiSpvoa  rb  iep  oyrov  M 171/05 
Tvpavi'ov,  aiptriarayrof  rod  ffeov,  in’  ayadij  rvxjft  Kaiprfdiva 
ijcaOapTov  irpocayeiv,  KaOap i^iarot  Si  an 6  onopOutv  teai^otpimp 
teal  yvyaucbf,  Xovoa/ieyovs  Se  KaraxetpaXa  avffrj/aepby  tianoptv^ 
te0aif  tea  i  e/c  t  <av  yvvaiKttiov  Si  a  inra  rjp.epu)V  kov<TO.p.ivqvxaTa- 
tciwaXa  eianopeveaOai  avdr)p.ep'ovt  ica'i  anb  vtKpov  Sia  qntpibvSeicmt 

The  remarks  of  Foucart  in  the  text,  p.  121  are:  “  Celui  qui,  vers  le  denxtftme 
sidcle  apres  notre  ere,  introduisit  dans  l’Attiquele  culte  de  Men,  6tait  un  esclave 
lycien,  employ^  par  un  proprietaire  romain  aux  travaux  des  mines.  C’dtalt  le 
dieu  lui-meme  qui,  dans  une  apparition  ou  dans  un  songe,  l’avait  invitA  &  (le¬ 
ver  le  temple.  Aussi  le  fondateur  a-t-il  pris  soin  de  rdpeter,  dans  les  deux  in¬ 
scriptions,  qu'il  ex6cutait  le  d6sir  de  M§n;  c’6tait  mettre  ainsi  sous  sa  protection 
le  reglement  qu’il  (dictait:  Moi,  Xanthos,  Lycien,  appartenant  a  Caius  Orbius, 
j’ai  consacr6  le  temple  de  M8n  Tyrannos,  pour  me  conformer  a  la  volont6  du 
dieu."  We  would  like  to  ask  how  a  poor  slave  working  in  the  mines  could  found, 
erect  and  consecrate  a  great  temple  so  solid  that  its  ruinB  and  inscriptions  re¬ 
main  as  testimony  to  this  day  ?  Foucart  in  his  desire  to  prove  that  all  those  in¬ 
scriptions  were  purely  religious  and  nothing  more,  forgets  that  a  slave  so  lowly 
could  do  no  such  thing.  He  was  simply  managing  officer  of  a  great  trade  union 
so  Democratic  that  social  distinctions  were  unknown  to  it.  This  eranos  erected 
the  temple. 

40  Bchambach,  Der  Ilalischc  Selavenaujland,  S.  6 :  “  Um  620  a.  U.-184  v.  Chr. 
emporten  sich  die  in  deu  LaurischenSilberberkenarbeitendenSklaven,  tddtetea 

ikre  Wachter,  nabmen  das  Kastell  von  bunion  ein  und  verwtiateten  Attika  lange 
Zeit. 


144 


STRIKE  AT  THE  SILVER  MINES 


ment.  Let  the  reader  imagine  a  thousand  workingmen 
safely  protected  from  the  most  deadly  enemies,  by  a  god ! 
But  not  only  for  a  day  or  two  were  they  thus  screened  from 
the  wrath  of  armed  soldiers  who  had  orders  to  spear  every 
one  of  the  strikers  the  instant  he  was  seen  outside  the 
sacred  pale,  but  for  months  this  continued  and  there  were 
battles  fought  and  frequent  and  successful  sallies  made  by 
the  workingmen  all  under  the  protecting  arm  of  the  god. 

The  strikers  killed  their  overseers,  rushed  into  the  town, 
took  possession,  got  the  temple  to  sleep  in,  organized  them¬ 
selves  for  combat,  took  the  arms  from  the  armories,  and 
for  a  long  time  laid  waste  the  country  on  every  side,  re¬ 
maining  masters  of  the  stronghold  within.  The  mayor  of 
the  city,  one  Heraklitos,41  after  their  rage  was  probably  spent, 
succeeded  in  defeating  them  when  in  all  probability  the 
usual  brutalities  of  wholesale  crucifixion  were  enacted  and 
nearly  every  one  put  to  death.  This  is  the  more  certain 
because  at  this  time,  B.  C.  133,  the  Romans  were  not  only 
masters  of  all  Greece,  but  their  contractors  were  operating 
the  silver  mines  at  Laurium,  for  which  kind  of  employment 
they  had  a  peculiar  fondness. 

Another  strike  and  bloody  stampede  of  a  similar  kind 
took  place  at  the  gold  mines  of  Pangaetus  in  Macedonia, 
which  was  of  sufficient  magnitude  to  get  into  the  history 
of  Augustin,  and  Schambach  mentions  it  as  another  import¬ 
ant  occurrence.42 

«  Orosins,  V.  9:  “In  metallis  quoque  Athenlenslum  idem  tnmnltiu  iervllii 

ab  Heraclito  prastore  discussua  est.’’ 

42  Schambach,  Der  Italische  Sklavenauf stand,  S.  5:  ‘'Auch  die  griechsche  Welt 
wurde  in  ahnlicher  weise,  wenn  auch  in  geringerer  Ausdehnung,  helmgesnoht. 
Nach  Augustin  de  civ.  in,  26  verwiisteten  kurz  vor  dem  Auabruche  des  ereten 
sicilischen  Sklavenkrieges  empdrte  Sklarenbanden  Macedonian  and  die  anstoa* 
unden  Gebiete. 


CHAPTER  VL 


GRIEVANCES. 

LABOR  TROUBLES  AMONG  THE  ROMANS. 
MORE  BLOODY  PLANS  OF  SALVATION  TRIED. 


Thk  Irascible  Plan  in  Italy — Epidemic  Uprisings — Attempt  to 
Fire  the  City  of  Rome  and  have  Things  common — Conspir¬ 
acy  of  Slaves  at  the  Metropolis — Two  Traitors — Betrayal — 
Deaths  on  the  Roman  Gibbet — Another  Great  Uprising  at  Se- 
tia — Expected  Capture  of  the  World — Land  of  Wine  and 
Delight — Again  the  Traitor,  the  Betrayal  and  Gibbet — The 
Irascible  Plan  a  Failure — Strike  of  the  Agricultural  Laborers 
in  Etruria — Slave  Labor — Character  of  the  Etruscans — Expe¬ 
dition  of  Glabro — Fighting — Slaves  Worsted — Punishment 
on  the  dreadful  Cross,  the  ancient  Block  for  the  Low-born — 
Enormous  Strike  in  the  Land  of  Labor  Organizations — One 
Glimpse  at  the  Cause  and  Origin  of  Italian  Brigandage — La¬ 
borers,  Mechanics  and  Agriculturers  Driven  to  Despair — 
The  gr  eat  Uprising  in  Apulia — Fierce  Fighting  to  the  Dag- 

fer’s  Eilt — The  Overthrow,  the  Dungeon  and  the  Cross.— 
*roof  Dug  from  Fragments  of  Lost  History. 

Strikes  and  labor  mutinies  are  known  to  have  occurred  at 
Rome.  There  was  one  of  a  desperate  nature  in  the  year 
417,  B.  C.,  while  Lanatus,  P.  Lucretius  and  Spurius  Rutilus 
were  tribunes  under  the  consuls  Vibulanus  and  Capitolinus.1 
This  was  during  the  Peloponnesian  war  and  the  fact  that  it 
occurred  about  the  same  time  with  the  great  strike  of  the 
20,000 a  miners  and  artisans  at  Athens,  shows  that  the  asser¬ 
tion  made  by  the  investigation  of  the  United  States  Bureau 

/ 

iLlvy,  Annales,  lib.  IV.  45. 

*  Authors  differ  a  little  as  to  dates,  The  different  Is  agreed  to  within 
three  years :  i.  e.  B.  C.  418  for  the  Athenian  and  417  for  the  Roman  strike. 


14* 


EARLY  MUTINEERS  OF  ITALY. 


of  Labor,  that  panics  and  depressions  are  simultaneous  and 
somewhat  epidemic  in  character,  is  true.*  This  remarka¬ 
ble  phenomenon  will  repeatedly  exhibit  itself  as  we  proceed. 
Livy  states  that  in  the  same  year  the  city  of  Cumae  in  Cam¬ 
pania,  long  inhabited  by  the  Greeks,  but  located  only  a 
short  distance  to  the  southward  of  Rome,  had  been  taken.4 
Undoubtedly  some  of  the  conspirators  whose  story  we  are 
about  to  recount,  were  Greeks.  Syracuse,  a  Greek-speaking 
city,  being  brought  into  contact  at  the  same  time  by  the 
novel  adventures  of  Nicias  and  Cimon,  must  have  afforded 
the  slaves  an  opportunity  of  hearing  the  news  of  the  great 
strike  pending  at  Decelea.  On  the  whole,  judging  from 
the  established  fact  that  strikes  and  uprisings  among  work¬ 
ingmen  are  nearly  always  contagious,  it  may  safely  be  set 
down  as  probable  that  these  historical  events  were  simul¬ 
taneous.  At  any  rate,  the  warning  words  of  Macrobius, 
that  “  the  more  slaves  the  more  enemies  ”  *  would  have  been 
applicable  to  both  Greeks  and  Romans;  for  though  deliv¬ 
ered  subsequently,  they  were  always  true. 

Enthused  by  some  subtile  agency,  whether  of  emissaries 
from  secret  societies,  or  straggling  travelers  or  pirates  bring¬ 
ing  exaggerated  accounts  from  Greece,  or  whether  goaded 
to  the  act  by  their  own  misery  neither  of  which  will  ever  be 
explained,  we  know  that  in  the  night,  in  the  year  417,  ac¬ 
cording  to  our  own  reckoning,  or  419  according  to  Bucher,* 
the  slaves  in  a  conjuration  they  had  previously  concocted, 
arose  and  attempted  to  fire  the  city  of  Rome.  Their  hatred 
was  not  only  against  their  bonds  per  se,  but  also  extremely 
intense  against  the  aristocracy  who,  ever  since  the  time  of 
their  beloved  king  Servius  Tullius,  B.  C.  578-534,  had  op¬ 
pressed  them  through  both  fear  and  jealousy.  Tullius  was 
the  6th  Roman  king;  and  of  all  others  since  the  great 
Numa  the  most  friendly  to  the  poor  and  lowly.  His  sym- 

Eathy  was  the  stronger  for  his  having  once  been  a  slave 
imself.  He  restored  the  arrangement  of  Numa  that  had 
regulated  their  trades  and  economic  relations.  He  upheld 
the  old  trade  organization.  As  to  the  slaves,  it  is  probable 

» Consult  First  Annual  Report  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor,  168C, 

pp.  15  and  290  referlnsr  to  panics  and  depre  siona. 

*  Liv.  lib.  IV.  cap  44.  hn.  CunisB  w  .s  also  the  birthplao*  of  Wo—lni  ttf 
rich  labor  agitator,  q.  v.  chapter  on  Aristonicu*. 

6  Macrobius,  Saturnaliorum  Libri,  I.  H. 

«  Bucher,  Aufstdnde  der  unfreien  Arbeiter,  S.  44. 


THE  GOOD  OLD  TIME 


147 


that  he  also  greatly  assisted  them.  All  who  could  count 
upon  enough  freedom,  he  organized.  He  added  to  the 
first  class  of  Numa’s  system  two  centuries.7  This  was  rec¬ 
ognizing  in  them  some  power  of  defence  and  an  element  of 
dignity.  When  this  good  man  died,  the  nobility,  mad  with 
jealousy,  overturned  some  of  the  laws  and  regulations  he 
had  established.  Even  during  his  life,  such  was  their  hatred 
that  they  plotted  an  indiscriminate  slaughter  in  which 
many  poor  working  people  fell  victims.  Before  he  died, 
he  caused  to  be  engraved  or  otherwise  chronicled,  a  consti¬ 
tution  which  greatly  favored  the  slave  population  and  the 
freedmen;  but  it  was  swept  out  of  existence  by  those  who 
succeeded  him. 

To  clearly  exhibit  the  state  of  human  credulity  in  ancient 
times  as  well  as  to  trace  the  origin  of  the  proletarian  the¬ 
ory  of  Saviors  and  the  prevalent  beliefs  in  immaculate  con¬ 
ceptions,  it  may  here  be  stated  that  Servius  Tullius  was 
imagined  a  descendant  of  a  slave  on  bis  mother’s  side  and 
of  a  god  on  his  father’s.  This  may  really  and  consistently 
with  the  Pagan  faith  have  been  perfectly  true;  because  ac¬ 
cording  to  that  religion  any  paterfamilias,  or  head  of  a 
noble  gens  family  was  a  god  and  there  was  a  law  giving 
him  privilege  to  have  children  by  his  female  slaves.8  All 
strikes  and  uprisings  had  been  easily  subdued  under  Ser¬ 
vius  Tullius.  The  massacre  of  the  slaves  alluded  to  was 
not  in  the  least,  so  far  as  we  have  information,  instigated 
by  him,  but  by  the  jealous  nobility  who  could  not  bear  to 
see  a  favor  shown  the  poor  whom  they  despised.  After 
King  Tarquin  acceded  to  the  throne  and  the  good  work  of 
Tullius  was  destroyed,  they  seem  to  have  revived  their  old 
uneasiness;  and  no  doubt  many  uprisings  actually  took 
place  which  have  never  been  mentioned  in  history.  Thus, 
143  years  elapsed  before  the  occurrence  of  the  scene  we 
have  introduced.  The  intelligence  regarding  this  horror 
is  exceedingly  meagre.  Livy  simply  relates  that  the  hap¬ 
piness  of  the  Roman  people  was  this  year  disturbed,  not 
by  a  defeat  of  the  army  this  time,  but  by  “a  great  dan- 

»  Orelli,  Jnscriptionum  Latinamm  Colleciio,  nos.  1803,  2443,  4105;  Livy, 
1.  43;  Drumann,  S,  154;  Plutarch,  Nurna.  17. 

•  Granier,  Hist .  des  Classes  Ouvrih  es,  p.  70,  But  the  best  proof  of  this 
is  Dionysius  of  Halicarn  <s‘us,  ih  I.  Consult  also  Bombardini,  De  Car- 
cere  tt  antique  ejus  Urn,  quotiny:  the  law:  ‘Romulus  pennissit  maratls  jus 
vit»  ac  necessitudinis  in  uxores  suas  indulgere.” 


148  EARLY  MUTINEERS  OF  ITALY. 

ger.”  He  characterizes  it  indeed,  as  prodigious*  Thug 
though  all  the  particulars  are  not  given  the  probabilities 
are,  that  it  was  a  memorable  affair. 

A  certain  number  of  slaves  of  Rome  formed  a  conspir¬ 
acy  to  secretly  set  fire  to  the  city  in  the  night.  The  plan 
was  to  fire  the  houses  in  many  places  at  once.  Then, 
when  the  buildings  were  ablaze,  they  expected  a  stampede 
of  the  people  as  sometimes  occurs  at  a  burning  theatre  or 
church,  on  which  occasion  there  settles  a  horror  and  a 
craze,  the  people  losing  their  wits  and  thus  falling  an  easy 
prey  to  a  few  well  organized  ruffians  who,  with  a  stern 
leader  are  able  so  shrewdly  to  command  and  manage  as 
to  demolish,  plunder  and  make  off  with  much  that  the 
flames  leave  unconsumed.  This  was  the  intention  of  the 
Roman  slave  conspiracy.  They  made  their  plans  to  throw 
the  city  into  a  vast  confusion  and  at  a  point  when  flames 
and  fright  combined  to  perfect  the  moral  chaos,  to  seize 
the  arms  from  the  armories  and  whatever  else  was  avail¬ 
able,  put  the  citizens  to  the  sword,  set  their  fellow  slaves 
free,  and  having  completed  the  work  of  devastation,  take 
possession  of  the  property,  occupy  the  citadels  and  the 
capitol  and  settle  down  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  women 
whom  they  did  not  propose  to  hurt  in  their  general  mas¬ 
sacre  of  the  men.  In  the  act  of  carrying  out  this  prodig¬ 
ious  carnage  they  where  betrayed  by  two  of  the  conspira¬ 
tors  as  is  commonly  the  case  in  such  attempts.  As  a  re¬ 
sult  the  ringleaders  were  seized  by  the  officers  of  justice 
and  crucified.10 

It  is  very  singular  that  Livy,  usually  elaborate  when 
dwelling  upon  an  important  event,  should  so  peremptorily 
dismiss  this  subject  which  he  introduces  as  one  of  the  his¬ 
torical  events  of  Rome  in  which  the  Roman  people,  as  it 
were,  through  the  protecting  power  of  their  god  Jupiter, 
narrowly  escaped.  How  many  or  how  many  thousands 
were  crucified,  excepting  the  two  who  exposed  the  con¬ 
spiracy  to  Jupiter,11  is  not  stated.  We  recall  this  to  mind 
with  the  more  interest,  since  later  uprisings  like  those  of 
Eunus,  Aristonicus  and  Spartacus  were  followed  by  the 

»Liv.  lib.  IV.  45:  •’  Annus  felicitate  populi  Romani  perlculo  potius  in- 
genti  quam  clade  insignia  ’’  Cf .  Dionys.  Halicar,  excerpt  xi. 

10  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  Acechceol.  Rhomaike,  xii.  6. 

u  Idem,  IV.  45:  “Avertit  ne  and  i  consilia  Jupiter,  indecisque  dnc- 
rum  comprhenea  i  sonte*  \  ce  as  declerunt.” 


RUNAWAYS  IN  THE  SWAMPS . 


149 


execution  of  thousands  upon  the  cross.  The  two  traitors 
were  richly  rewarded  with  money  and  freedom.13 

Btlcher  reckons  the  year  in  which  occurred  another 
uprising  in  the  heart  of  Latium,  Italy,  to  have  been  B.  C. 
194.  It  was  a  very  dangerous  strike  of  slaves.  The  old 
Pomptine  swamps  in  ancient  times  near  the  mountain  city 
of  Setia  were  infested  with  the  runaway  slaves,  who  to 
exist,  were  obliged  to  sally  out  from  their  glades  where 
they  hid  by  day,  and  played  a  role  of  brigands.  All  about 
the  swamps  on  the  higher  levels,  the  soil  was  celebrated 
for  productiveness.  Setan  wines  were  renowned  for  their 
relish.  The  city  itself  was  between  these  marshes  and  the 
mountain  cliffs,  affording  the  brigands  an  immense  range 
of  forests,  rocks,  acclivities  and  jungles,  which  could  be 
used  as  fastnesses  when  the  pursuers  or  the  weather 
would  not  permit  the  fugitives  to  live  in  the  marshes  be¬ 
low.  Of  course  the  little  fortified  Setia  full  of  good  things, 
but  maintained  by  the  labor  of  slaves,  was  an  object  of 
envy  and  a  moral  stumbling  block  to  this  order  of  submis¬ 
sion  within,  and  their  cupidity  or  vengeance  without. 
There  were  also  numbers  of  other  small  cities  and  towns 
in  this  region.  The  encroachments  of  the  rich  gens  fam¬ 
ilies  upon  the  ager  publicus  or  public  lands,  which  under 
the  laws  of  Numa  and  Servius  Tullius  had  been  cultivated 
by  the  small  farmers,  sometimes  by  unions  of  farmers  and 
as  it  were,  in  a  socialistic  way,  had  driven  out  the  happj' 
olden  days  and  flogged  into  their  places  the  horrid  slave 
system  of  cultivation.  Here,  at  the  foot  of  this  spur  of 
the  Appenines,  as  in  the  valley  of  the  Guicus  about  Per- 
gamum  and  the  exquisite  plateau  of  Enna,13  the  greedy 
slave  owner  had  fastened  upon  the  limbs  of  his  human 
chattels  the  clanking  chains  of  enforced  bondage  and  de¬ 
clared  a  lockout  of  the  former  guilds  who  worked  the 
government  lands  on  shares.  That  they  had  no  other 
right  to  these  lands  than  that  of  lawless  might  we  shall  in 
our  chapter  on  Spartacus,  sufficiently  portray.14 

These  landlords,  it  is  conceded  by  every  one  who  has 
given  attention  to  the  subject,15  acted  in  every  way  the 

m Idem:  “Indicibus  dena  milla  gravis  teris,  qure  turn  divlti®  habeban- 
tur,  ex  eerario  tnamerata  et  libertas  prsemium  iuit.” 

18  See  detailel  accounts  o:  the  great  uprising's  of  the  workiagmen  at 
these  places  chapters,  vii. — x. 

M  Chapter  xif.  16  Drum.  Arb.  u.  Comm.  8.  152-8. 


150 


EARLY  MUTINEERS  OF  ITALY. 


part  of  high-handed  land  pirates,  in  seizing  the  farms 
from  the  former  lessees  of  the  government  of  Rome. 
Without  doubt  these,  maddened  by  their  outrageous  de¬ 
privations,  instigated  many  a  revolt  of  the  slaves  who 
had,  as  chattels,  and  under  the  bitterest  urgents  of  lash 
and  threat,  been  forced  to  take  their  places.  It  was 
a  time  when  a  third  of  the  honest,  hard  working  popula¬ 
tion  were  being  literally  choked  away  from  their  means 
of  earning  a  living  for  their  families.18  There  is  no  lack 
of  information  regarding  the  grievances  of  either  the 
slaves  impressed  into  the  labor  they  hated,  or  the  former 
tillers,  locked  out  from  the  labor  they  loved.  It  is  there¬ 
fore  without  wonder  that  we  hear  of  the  outbreak  or 
strike  of  B.  C.  198.  The  numerous  bands  of  slave  ban¬ 
dits  prowling  among  the  swamps  and  mountain  fast¬ 
nesses  formed  an  alliance 1T  with  the  slaves  within  the 
city,  who  were  as  dissatisfied  with  their  shackles  as 
were  the  degraded  agricultural  wretches  delving  out¬ 
side.  The  collusion  spread  from  Setia  to  Prseneste 
. 35  miles  to  the  north  and  to  Circe ji  a  few  miles  be¬ 
yond.  About  the  time  the  conjurators  were  ready  to 
make  their  deadly  dash,  was  the  moment  when  the  peo¬ 
ple  of  Setia  were  to  have  a  gala-day.  What  sort  of 
festivity  is  not  exactly  clear.  But  judging  from  the 
popularity  of  the  gladiatorial  games  not  only  at  Rome 
but  at  that  time,  also  in  most  of  the  provincial  cities, 
it  perhaps  may  be  plausibly  conjectured  that  the  plays 
alluded  to  by  Livy  were  the  horrible  butcheries  of  the 
arena.  This  public  event  afforded  the  conspirators  an 
opportunity.  Their  plan  was  to  take  advantage  of  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  games  when  least  the  populace  were 
on  the  alert,  crash  upon  the  people,  plunder  the  town, 
seize  weapons  and  munitions  necessary;  then  striking 
for  the  town  of  Norba,  commit  the  same  violence  there, 
murder  the  masters  and  most  of  the  other  patricians 
and  proceed  to  other  cities  in  the  vicinity  repeating 
the  carnage  at  each  place  until  they  gained  the  mas¬ 
tery  of  the  world !  Under  the  allowance  of  instruc- 

19  Plut.  “Tiberius  Gracchus,”  makes  a  plaintive  comment  on  their  sufferings. 

17  Riichner,  “Aufstlnde  d.  unf.  Arb.”  S.  28. 


AGAIN  THE  TRAITOR . 


161 


tfon  the  slaves  of  that  period  enjoyed,  this  impossible 
scheme  should  not  seem  absurd;  since  they  doubtless  had 
little  knowledge  or  conception  of  a  world  stretching  be¬ 
yond  their  vision  and  experience. 

Again  the  traitor.  Setia  was  under  the  praetor  ship  of 
C.  Cornelius  Lentulus.  Just  at  the  outbreak  of  the  strike, 
but  whether  during  the  tumult  of  a  bloody  fray  we  are 
uninformed,  two  of  the  conspirators  lost  courage  and  be¬ 
trayed  the  plot.  Livy  says:  “The  object  was,  when  Setia 
was  once  in  their  hands,  by  the  combined  result  of  mur¬ 
der  and  sudden  tumult  to  first  seize  and  similarly  serve 
the  cities  of  Norba  and  Circeji.  Information  of  this  ter¬ 
rible  plot  was  carried  to  Rome  and  laid  before  the  Prae¬ 
tor,  L.  Cornelius  Merula,  by  two  slaves  who  arrived  from 
the  scene  before  daybreak  and  in  systematic  order  ex¬ 
posed  the  anticipated  operations  of  the  insurrectionists.”  18 

Instantaneous  action  was  now  necessary  at  Rome.  The 
Senate  was  in  a  few  minutes  convoked.  The  two  Roman 
eonsuls  for  that  year,  (B.  C.  198),  Sextus  iElius  Psetus  and 
T.  Quine tius  Flam  minus,  were  absent  with  their  com¬ 
mands  in  Gaul  and  elsewhere;  so  Merula  one  of  the  four 
ttdiles  or  tribunes  of  the  people,  was  called  to  the  task  of 

i*Ut.  XXXTI.  26.  “  Quern  ad  modum  Gallia  proeter  epem  quiet*  eo  anno 
fait,  it*  circa  urbem  servilis  prope  tumultus  est  excitatus.  Obsides  Carthagi- 
nienslum  Setiffi  eustodiebantur.  Cum  iis,  ut  principum  liberis,  magna  vis  ser- 
Yorum  erat.  Augebant  eorum  numerum,  ut  ab  recenti  Africo  bello,  et  ab  ipsis 
Setinis  captiva  aliquot  nationis  eius  empta  ex  praeda  mancipia.  Cum  conjura- 
tionem  fecissent,  missis  ex  eo  numero  primum  qui  in  Setino  agro,  deinde  circa 
Norbam  et  Circeios  servitia  sollicitarent,  satis  iam  omnibus  prreparatis  ludis  qui 
Setiae  prope  diem  futuri  erant,  spectaculo  intentum  populum  adgredi  statuerant, 
Setia  per  c®dem  et  repentinum  tumultum  capta,  Norbam  et  Circeios  occupare. 
Hujus  rei  tarn  feed®  indicium  Homan  ad  L.  Cornelium  Merulam  praetorem  ur- 
bie  delatum  est.  Servi  duo  ante  lucem  ad  eum  venerunt,  atque  ordine  omnia 
quae  acta  futuraque  erant  exposuerunt.  Quibus  domi  custodiri  iussis,  praetor 
aen&tu  vocato  edoctoque,  quae  indices  adferrent,  proficisci  ad  earn  conjurationem 
quacrendam  atque  opprimendam  iussus,  cum  quinque  legatis  profectus  obvios 
m  agris  sacramento  rogatos  arma  capere  et  sequicogebat.  Hoc  tumultuario  de¬ 
jecta  duobus  milibus  ferme  hominum  armatis  Setiam,  omnibus  quo  pergeret 
Ignaris,  venit.  n>i  raptim  principibus  conjurationis  comprehensis  fuga  servorum 
•x  oppido  facta  est  Dimissis  deinde  per  agros  qui  vestigarent  *********. 
Egregia  duorum  opera  servorum  indicum  et  unius  liberi  fuit.  Ei  centum  milia 
gravis  aeris  dari  patres  iusserunt,  servis  vicena  quina  milia  aeris  et  libertatem; 
pretium  eorum  ex  aerario  solutiim  est  dominis.  Haud  ita  multo  post  ex  eiusdem 
conjurationis  reUquiis  nuntiatum  est  servitia  Praeneste  occupatura.  Eo  L.  Cor¬ 
nelius  praetor  profectus  de  quingentis  fere  hominibus,  qui  in  ea  noxa  erant,  sup- 
nlicium  sumpsit.  In  timore  civitas  fuit  obsides  captivosque  Poenorum  ea  mo- 
liri.  Itaque  et  Rom®  vigiliae  per  vicos  servat®,  iussique  circumire  eas  minores 
magistratus;  et  triumviri  carceris  lautumiarum  intentiorem  custodiam  habere 
lux  si;  et  circa  nomen  Latinum  a  praetore  litter®  miss®,  ut  et  obsides  in  privato 
■ervarentur,  neque  in  publicum  prodeundi  facultas  daretur,  et  captivi  ne  minus 
decern  pondo  compedibus  vincti  iu  nulla  alia  quam  in  carceris  publici  custodia 
esaent." 


MARLY  MUTINEERS  OF  ITALY. 


16* 

suppressing  the  conspiracy.  At  this  impromptu  meeting 
of  the  Roman  Senate  it  was  ordered  that  Merula  should 
take  the  field  in  person.  There  being  at  that  instant  very 
few  regular  troops  at  command,  no  time  was  lost  in  wait¬ 
ing  orders  to  mass  them,  and  it  appears  that  he  set  out 
immediately  with  few,  gathering  militia  as  he  proceeded 
on  his  way  to  Setia ;  for  it  appears  that  before  reaching 
the  scene  of  the  danger  the  number  of  his  forces  reached 
2,000  men.  No  particulars  are  given  regarding  the  at¬ 
tack  on  the  conspirators.  We  have  no  information  as  to 
whether  there  occurred  a  conflict.  We  are  informed  that 
the  ring  leaders  of  the  conspiracy  were  arrested;  also  that 
the  slaves  were  thrown  into  great  confusion.  Livy  states 
that  the  town  of  Setia  was  the  place  where  many  hostages 
from  the  Carthagenian  army  were  kept.  The  battle  of 
Zama  between  Scipio  and  Hannibal,  B.  0.  202,  had  re¬ 
sulted  disastrously  to  those  old  enemies  of  Rome  and  these 
hostages  were  kept  by  the  conqueror  as  a  pledge  against 
further  hostilities.  Being  penned  in  together,  they  also 
naturally  joined  the  conspiracy  and  the  ring-leaders  re¬ 
ferred  to  by  Bucher,  may  have  been  some  of  the  veritable 
warriors  of  the  great  Hannibal  now  pining  in  custody  as 
hostages  around  the  barracks  of  Setia. 

But  here  again,  as  in  the  story  of  Spartacus,  the  excel¬ 
lent  history  of  Livy  is  broken  off  and  lost.  How  much  of 
the  real  story  is  missing  may  never  be  known.  But  for 
the  epitome  or  heading  of  this  book  we  should  be  left  in 
the  dark  entirely  as  to  the  results;  but  there  is  a  passage 
in  this  which  states  that  2,000  of  the  conspirators  were 
arrested  and  slaughtered.20  Judging  from  the  usual 
method  of  servile  executions,  it  might  be  inferred  that  the 
captured  like  those  of  Spartacus,  Eunus  and  Aristonicus. 
were  crucified  upon  the  gibbet.  It  is  more  probable  how¬ 
ever,  since  some  of  them  were  Carthagenian  veterans, 
that  part  of  them  were  crucified  and  the  remainder  butch¬ 
ered;  because  it  was  against  the  Roman  code  of  honor  to 
hang  veteran  soldiers  or  others  than  those  of  the  servile 
race,  upon  the  ignominious  cross.  Jesus  a  religio-politi- 
cal  offender  was  crucified  by  the  Romans  in  a  Roman  pro- 

VAufttdnde  d  tinfreien  Arb.  S.  29. 

Liv.  lib.  XXXII.  Epitomy :  “Conjuratio  servorum,  facta  de  solvendia 
Carthageniesium  obsidibns  oppressa  est;  duo  milia  necati  aunt. 


CRUCIFIXION. : 


153 


vince,  not  because  of  his  offence,  which  might  have  re¬ 
ceived  a  nobler  or  less  ignominious  punishment,  but  be¬ 
cause  he  was  a  workingman,  not  a  soldier;  and  conse¬ 
quently  ranked  with  the  servile  class  in  contradistinction 
to  the  noble  class  of  the  gens  family,  of  the  Pagan  religion. 

The  uprising  was  suppressed  after  a  struggle,  the  dura- 
ation  and  the  particulars  of  which  are  left  for  our  curiosity 
to  surmise.  But  the  causes  of  the  grievances  among  the 
slaves  were  too  profound  to  be  easily  stamped  out.  Mer- 
ula  and  his  legions,  their  reeking  sabers  and  victory-boast¬ 
ing  tongues,  their  tales  of  gibbet  and  dagger-to-the-hilt, 
the  agony  of  woe  and  death,  had  scarcely  had  time  to  set¬ 
tle  into  the  first  lull;  the  perpetrators  of  the  treachery 
which  discovered  the  plot  had  but  received  their  reward21 
by  order  of  the  Roman  Senate,  when  news  came  that  from 
the  direction  of  Prseneste  the  spirit  of  insurrection  was 
again  rife — this  time  in  and  about  that  city — and  that  a 
plot  had  been  disclosed  among  the  slaves  who  again  in 
great  numbers  were  caught  m  airing  a  singular  spring  in 
hopes  of  making  themselves  masters  of  it.  Again  their 
design  was  baffled.  The  Roman  forces  were  once  more 
sent  out  with  orders  to  exterminate  the  slaves.  The  same 
praetor,  L.  Cornelius  Merula,  was  soon  on  the  warpath  and 
as  before,  the  inexperienced  proletaries,  among  whom 
were  many  Punic  hostages  with  their  slender  preparations 
and  want  of  arms,  could  stand  no  ground  with  their  pow¬ 
erful  enemy.  A  battle  must  have  been  fought  of  consid¬ 
erable  importance,  and  the  result  was  certainly  a  disaster 
to  the  slaves  and  Carthagenian  hostages  and  prisoners  to 
whose  secret  machinations  the  blame  is  principally  attri¬ 
buted  by  Dr.  Bucher,  also  Livy  himself  by  implication.22 
The  number  of  poor  wretches  who  suffered  on  the  scaffold 
reached  500,  making  2,500  public  executions,  besides  the 
number  not  given  in  either  case  who  were  killed  in  the 
conflicts  before  being  overcome.  A  great  turbulence  was 
caused  thoughout  the  community. 

Strong  vigilance  was  now  instituted  at  Rome  to  protect 
the  smaller  places  from  a  recurrence  of  those  dangers 
which  had  stamped  their  terror  upon  the  inhabitants. 
The  triumvirs  ordered  a  closer  guard  to  be  kept  over  the 

*i '‘Egregia  duorum”  <fec.  Liv.  XXXII.  pap.  26. 

22  Livy,  Idem;  Biioh.  Afifstande  dec.  29:  Allgemein  mass  man  geheim- 
en  Umtrieben  der  punischeu  GeiSaeln  und  Gefangenen  die  ScbuldbeL” 


164 


EARLY  MUTINEERS  OF  ITALY. 


great  underground  prison  called  career  lautumiae ,n  where 
those  taken  prisoners  were  placed.  It  was  ordered  that 
the  Carthagenian  hostages  be  degraded  to  the  condition 
of  slaves  to  work  for  private  individuals  and  disallowed 
further  privilege  of  being  seen  any  more  in  public  or  hav¬ 
ing  any  more  enjoyment  in  the  open  world.  The  shackles 
in  which  the  prisoners  were  chained,  were  ordered  to  weigh 
not  less  than  10  pounds.  The  prison  in  which  they  were 
thenceforth  to  be  forever  kept  was  the  public  career ,  a  de¬ 
scription  of  which  may  now  be  interesting. 

“  There  was  a  place  ”  says  the  Italian  jurist  Bombardini,14 
*  in  the  ancient  Roman  prison,  called  the  Tullian  cell, 
whither  you  descend  by  a  ladder  to  the  distance  of  12 
feet,  into  a  damp  hole,  excavated  in  the  earth.  It  was 
walled  in  on  all  sides  and  vaulted  overhead  having  the 
sections  adjoined.  It  had  a  putrid  odor  and  a  frightful 
outlook.”  But  this  is  but  the  beginning,  (B.  0.  650  -500,) 
of  what  it  had  developed  into,  by  the  time  of  which  we  speak. 
(B.C.  198).  L  ong  before  this  the  prisoners  here  were  at 
work.  " Their  masters  saw  them  but  rarely;  their  food 
was  lowered  to  them  through  breathing  holes,  also  their 
straw  and  scanty  clothing.” 3*  Yarro  likewise  tells  of  the 
latomia  or  quarry  and  the  ergastulum  called  the  prison 
TuUianaS*  At  any  rate  the  public  prison  still  to  be  seen, 
was  a  deep  and  spacious  excavation  under  the  Capitoline 
Hill,  which  had  been  made  by  prison  labor.  The  object 
of  the  ancients  in  setting  prisoners  at  work  was  twofold. 
First,  vengeance  rather  than  correction,  as  in  our  days  of 
comparative  enlightenment.  Secondly,  economy;  for  the 
ancients  had  the  contract  system  with  all  its  brutalities 
and  horrors.  The  stone  quarried  out  of  these  diggings 
furnished  good  building  material  and  the  holes  thus  left 
made  prisons  for  the  workmen  who  quarried  it.  Thus,  in 
course  of  ages  Rome  became  what  Pliny  called  the  Urbs 
pensilis  ”  or  city  hanging  in  the  air.  Most  of  these  stu- 

**  Bombardini,  De  Carztre  et  antiquo  eju-.  Usu,  cap.  Ill, 

*  Idem,  Cap.  iii,  p.  746  of  Thesaurus  Grcevii  et  Gronovii ,  Supplement. 

»  Maurice  Hist  Politique  et  Anecdotique  des  Prisons  de  la  Seine ,  pp.  1-4. 

seVarro,  De  Re  Rustica,  cap.  iii.  8  speaks  of  them  and  of  the  popular, 
opinion  that  these  holes  were  nurseries  of  serpents.  Cf.  Prudentius,  Hymn  V. 

^  Nat.  Hist.  Speaking  in  another  place  (lib  XXVIII  4,),  Pllnv  thinks 
thev  were  dug  by  Tullue  Hostilius:  “L.  Piso  primo  annalium  auctor  est, 

Tullum  Hostiliurn  regem  ex  Numaa  libris  eodera . ..multi  vero,  mama- 

rum  rerum  fata  et  ostenta  verbis  permutari.  Cura  in  Tarpeio  fodientes  de* 
lubro  fundament  i,  cap  it  humanum  inveniseent,  missis  ob  id  ad  se  legati? 


DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  DUNGEONS. 


155 


pendous  catacombs  are  still  to  bo  seen  in  a  more  or  less 
perfect  state  of  preservation.  Like  the  vast  catacombs  of 
Paris,  they  were  originally  stone  quarries;  then  some  of 
them  differentiated  into  sewers,  cloacae ,  some  into  public 
prisons,  some  into  subterranean  workshops,  ergastula. 
The  person  condemned,  if  of  low  rank  without  family  or 
money,  was  sent  ad  opus  publicum ,  to  the  public  works. 
“  It  w'as  a  place  into  which  people  were  snatched;  exca¬ 
vated  from  sharp  rocks,  immensely  deep;  a  huge  cutting 
or  grotto  quarried  in  the  depths  with  passages  interrupted 
by  great,  sharp-cornered  rocks  between  which  the  victims’ 
bodies  squeezed.  Projecting  crags  bristled  as  they  sprang 
forth  from  the  walls  in  darkness  of  midnight  and  frowned 
horribly  over  the  abyss — a  place  of  all  others,  from  which 
the  person  doomed,  when  once  thrown  in,  never  after¬ 
wards  saw  the  light  of  day.” 28  Of  course  the  convicts 
were  furnished  with  lamps  to  light  their  steps  and  hands 
at  work. 

The  reader  is  now  left  to  judge  for  himself  as  to  the 
justice  or  injustice  of  the  causes  lurking  at  the  bottom  of 
all  ancient  strikes. 

We  are  again  grateful  to  Dr.  Karl  Bucher,  who  reminds 
us  of  the  account  sparingly  given  by  Livy,  of  another  great 
uprising,  B.  C.  196,  among  the  agricultural  laborers  of 
Etruria.29  This  noble  country  stretched  from  the  Tiber 
on  the  south  to  the  Ticino  on  the  north.  The  rapturous 
landscapes  of  the  Arno,  the  many  beautiful  Appenine  lakes 
and  mountains  were  Etruscan.  No  land  ever  subjugated 
by  Rome  possessed  more,  agricultural  or  mineral  wealth. 
Its  original  inhabitants  possessed  the  refined  civilization 
whence  Rome  took  most  of  her  prosperity.  Bold,  inven¬ 
tive,  mechanical,  progressive,  the  Etruscans  ill-brooked  the 
fetters  of  slavery  fastened  upon  them  like  gyves  by  the 
greedy  land  grabbers  who  took  possession  of  the  soil, 
somewhat  in  the  manner  of  the  land  owners  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  at  the  present  time.  The  descend¬ 
ants  of  the  ancient  Etruscan  stock  held  much  of  the  land, 

Etrur  £e  celeberrimus  vates  Olenns  Calenus  praBC’arnvn  id  fortunatumque 
cernens,  intercom.,  tione  in  suam  gentem  transferretentavit,”  eto.  For  a  <ie- 
tcrij  t  on  see  Prude:  t  Us.  Hymn  V. 

~  E  i trope?  Epit.  Rom .  Hist.  Era  of  Tarquin . 

20  Aufstdnde  d.  unf.  Arb  S.  ‘29. 

GraniOr,  de  Cas Hist.  Glasses  Ouv .  chaps,  xiii.  xiv.  ;  Orell.  noj.  3346;  3347, 
6673,  1239,  qf  Inter,  Eat  Col,  See  also  withxn  account  of  the  Vtcligalaia 


156 


EARLY  MUTINEERS  OF  ITALY . 


as  free  agrieulturers  and  to  them  the  government  had  long 
farmed  it  on  shares,  thus  securing  to  the  laborers  a  good 
living  from  the  proceeds  and  to  the  government  a  good 
revenue  which  was  paid,  not  in  money  but  in  kind,  the 
rent  tax  being  collected  through  the  celebrated  system  of 
the  vectigalia.80  The  slave  system  of  the  rich  lords,  who, 
without  a  tittle  of  right  by  law,  and  indeed  in  direct  defi¬ 
ance  of  the  precedents  established  by  Numa  and  Servius 
Tullius,  as  well  as  the  Licinian  law,  which,  through  the  in¬ 
trigues  of  the  great  proprietors  had,  from  its  passage,  re¬ 
mained  a  dead  letter,  was  now  becoming  a  terrible  scourge. 
Indeed,  in  after  days,  Tiberius  Gracchus  on  his  way  to 
Spain,  passed  through  Etruria  and  found  to  his  horror 
that  once  populous  land  in  the  hands  of  a  few  lordly  mas¬ 
ters  who  had  completely  locked  the  original  agrieulturers 
out  and  supplanted  them  with  slaves.  The  scene  of  slavery 
and  woe  so  stirred  the  blood  of  this  noble  Roman  that  he 
devoted  his  remaining  life  to  the  great  agitation  which  is 
famous  to  this  day  as  the  agrarian  movement  with  the 
bloody  commotions  that  attended  them,  resulting  in  his 
own  assassination.  Such  was  the  terrible  condition  of 
human  slavery  at  that  time,  B.  0.  196.  In  fact  the  slave 
system  had  to  a  large  extent,  driven  out  the  once  free  and 
prosperous  labor  not  only  of  Etruria  but  also  of  lower 
Italy,  Sicily,  Asia  Minor,  large  parts  of  Greece,  Spain  and 
the  smaller  islands;  and  Rome  was  becoming  the  fatten¬ 
ing  pen  of  the  arrogant  grandees  who  lived  in  degenerate 
profligacy  upon  the  lash- enforced  drudgery  of  millions  of 
slaves.  Perhaps  in  telling  these  portentous  truths  to  the 
world  in  the  light  of  a  social  historiographer,  we  are  among 
the  first  to  discover  the  germ  of  a  deeply  hidden  virtue  in 
the  revolt  whose  history  occupies  but  eight  poverty-solem¬ 
nized  lines  in  the  great  history  of  Livy.  But  to  the  stu¬ 
dent  of  sociology  even  this  poor  sketch  brings  back  to  us 
the  profound  wisdom  of  Anaxagoras  and  Aristotle  who 
taught  that  all  knowledge,  all  virtue  and  all  progress  emi- 
nate  from  humblest  origin  and  that  we  can  have  nothing 
permanent  or  perfect  except  through  investigation  and 
experiment  involving  the  severest  trials.  And  although 
the  poor  slaves  fell  in  thousands  by  the  lash,  the  dungeon 

30 Ahfst,  d.  unf.  Arb.  "Trotzdem  gelling  es  ihm  nioht  ohne  heftigen  K»mpi 

die  einzelen  Haufen  zn  zerepringen.” 


GREAT  STRIKE  IN  ETRURIA. 


157 


Ihe  cross  and  although  hundreds  of  years  elapsed  before 
the  bonds  of  their  slavery  were  broken  yet  who  shall  say 
their  dying  agonies  here  did  not  contribute  to  the  cumu- 
lous  of  forces  which  at  last  swept  their  fetters  away  ? 

L.  Furius  and  Claudius  Marcellus  were  consuls  at  Rome 
when  this  agrarian  uprising  occurred.  Their  offices  of 
state  requiring  their  attention,  the  praetor,  M.  Acilius 
Glabro  had  in  charge  the  *  peace  of  the  community.”  Lit¬ 
tle  is  known  of  the  details  of  this  uprising.  The  slaves 
were  inhumanly  oppressed  and  ready  to  accept  desperate 
conditions  if  they  held  out  the  least  promise  of  success  in 
freeing  them  of  their  sufferings.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
old  cultivators  had  for  centuries  lived  in  ease  upon  the 
public  lands  and  their  organizations  interlinked  with  those 
of  the  collegia  and  sodalicia  which  were  just  then  being 
treated  with  severe  censure  and  even  threat  by  the  Roman 
citizens  who  managed  legislation.  Efforts  were  begun 
about  this  time  to  suppress  most  of  the  labor  organiza¬ 
tions.  The  wealthy  who  were  engaged  in  driving  out  free 
agricultural  labor  and  supplanting  it  by  that  of  slaves  on 
the  plantations,  were  particularly  bitter  against  free  labor, 
both  in  city  and  country. 

When  the  news  of  the  uprising  reached  Rome,  Glabro 
immediately  set  out  with  one  of  the  two  legions  of  soldiers 
at  command.  By  the  appearance  of  things,  the  organiza¬ 
tion  was  not  complete  among  the  insurgents.  The  slaves, 
as  Livy  calls  them  in  his  sweeping  terms,  but  more  prob¬ 
ably  also  the  disaffected  part  of  community  generally  and 
now  locked  out — those  who  formerly  tilled  the  land  on 
shares  and  also  the  slaves  themselves — all  of  whose  cause 
was  common,  met  Glabro  hilt  to  hilt  and  in  a  bloody  bat¬ 
tle  were  overcome.  Bucher  surmises  that  though  the 
Romans  were  victorious,  it  was  not  without  a  heavy  battle.31 
Great  was  the  number  of  fallen  workingmen  and  the  num¬ 
ber  of  those  of  their  ranks  taken  prisoners  was  still  greater. 
The  leaders  of  the  revolt  were  scourged  and  hung  upon 
the  cross.  The  remaining  slaves  were  given  up  to  their 
merciless  masters  to  receive  at  their  hands  a  double  por¬ 
tion  of  hardships  in  the  future.  The  freedmen  engaged 
in  this  insurrection  would,  under  the  Roman  custom  of 

11  Livy,  XXXm.  cbv.  36;  "Ex  his  (tlie  sinkers)  multi  occisl  multi  c&pti: 
alios  verbratos  crueibus  adflxit,  qux  principle  coujurationis  fuerant ,  alio*  dom 
luis  restituii." 


158 


EARLY  MUTINEERS  OF  ITALY. 


treating  enemies  taken  in  battle,  be  sold  as  slaves  or  held 
as  criminals  and  sent  to  the  quarries  and  mines  to  linger 
for  life  at  hard  labor;  for  Bucher  here  correctly  states 
that  only  under  extraordinary  circumstances  did  the 
Romans  ever  treat  with  lenity  their  captured  enemies  and 
the  slave  insurgents  of  all  others,  are  known  to  have  re¬ 
ceived  the  most  relentless  measure  of  malignity  at  their 
hands.83 

One  of  the  countries  in  which  Spartacus  was  best  re¬ 
ceived  and  from  among  whose  people  he  obtained  the 
largest  number  and  the  best  volunteers  who  accepted  with 
gratitude  his  offers  of  freedom,  was  Apulia.  It  was  that 
rich,  well  watered,  pastoral  tract  lying  to  the  north  and 
bordering  on  the  Tarentine  gulf.  About  120  years  before 
the  great  and  memorable  war  of  Spartacus  broke  out, 
these  fine  lands  lying  between  the  eastern  slope  of  the 
Appenines  and  the  Adriatic,  were  prey  of  the  slave  sys¬ 
tem.  “  Where  earlier,  the  industrious  farmers  had  thrived 
in  happiness  and  plenty,  herdsmen  now  in  lonliness  drove 
and  herded  countless  flocks  of  cattle  and  sheep  belong¬ 
ing  to  Roman  Senators  and  knights.”88  Apulia  being  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  mountains  from  Rome  and  most 
of  the  opulent  cities  of  Italy,  was  a  region  topographi¬ 
cally  suitable  for  robbers,  both  of  land  and  sea.  To  the 
west  were  the  mountains,  whose  rocks  and  forests  afforded 
shelter  for  men  of  desperate  nerve.  The  introduction  of 
servile  hands  through  the  slave  trade  which  had  driven 
free  labor  from  the  agricultural  and  pastoral  regions  of 
Italy  had  naturally  been  followed  by  a  variety  of  desper¬ 
adoes  whose  bands  at  the  time  of  our  story,  infested  the 
whole  stretch.  He  also  surmises  with  much  intelligence 
that  these  organized  gangs  were  not  without  a  distinct 
purpose  in  working  for  their  fellow  men,  and  our  own  in¬ 
spection  satisfies  us  that  a  philosophy  or  culture  Lad  from 
high  antiquity  existed  for  the  redemption  of  the  pool 
everywhere. 

In  another  chapter  we  shall  show  the  relationship  be 
tween  the  societies  of  Dionysoi  and  those  of  the  Bac¬ 
chantes.  Indeed  there  appears  little  difference  between 
them.  In  both  words,  oneLatin,  the  other  3.reek,  we  have 

*2  Btlch.  Auftt.  d.  tin/.  Arb.  S.  81. 

Liiders,  Dionyt.  Kuatt.  passim. 


BACCHANTES  COMING  TO  THE  LIGHT.  15fi 


the  same  meaning.  They  were  in  Greece,  in  the  islands, 
in  Asia  Minor  and  Palestine,  mostly  organizations  of  arti¬ 
ficers  or  skilled  mechanics; 54  but  because  they  held  fes¬ 
tivities  and  conducted  them  on  methods  peculiar  to  them¬ 
selves  as  well  as  because  they  were  working  people,  they 
were  looked  upon  with  suspicion.  No  author  of  antiquity 
or  orator  could  speak  with  respect  of  the  bacchanals.  We 
know  by  the  inscriptions  that  they  had  many  societies  at 
Rome  and  in  the  provincial  cities.  Cicero  and  Livy  spurn 
them.  No  doubt  the  obloquy  the)7-  suffered  drove  them  ' 
into  these  fastnesses  and  made  them,  by  sheer  compulsion, 
assume  suspicious  attitudes.  However  this  may  be,  we 
find  Livy  associating  them  with  another  great  strike  or 
uprising  of  the  workingmen  which  occurred  B.  C.  185-184, 
in  Apulia  and  along  the  coast  between  there  and  Bruttium. 

It  was  during  the  days  of  the  stern  Cato’s  power,  in  the 
consulship  of  Appius  Claudius  Pulcher  and  M.  Sempronius 
Tnditanus.36  The  so-called  province  of  Apulia  was  in  the 
care  of  the  praetor,  L.  Postumius.  This  man’s  watch - 
ground  was  Apulia  and  the  shores  of  the  gulf  of  Tarentum. 

1.  few  years  afterwards  the  famous  Spartacus  led  his  army 
c  rebel  workingmen,  consisting  of  volunteer  gladiators, 
shepherds,  bacchantes  and  slaves,  to  Metapontem,  where 
be  spent  the  memorable  winter  of  B.  C.  V3-72.36  Too  just 
to  allow  disorder,  too  wise  to  permit  even  a  draught  of 
w'ne  to  be  drank  in  carousal,  too  good  to  give  his  loved 
sol  Tiers  the  bridle,  this  modest  gladiator  here  proved  him¬ 
self  the  terror  of  the  haughty  Romans  and  a  prototype  of 
modern  military  virtue,  genius  and  discipline.  And  this 
town  was  in  the  very  valleys  of  the  scenes  of  our  present 
story.87  Livy,  as  is  usual  with  ancient  historians,  when 
speaking  of  the  uprisings  of  the  oppressed  working  classes 
n  ;akes  short  work  of  his  story.  We  linger  upon  his 
stingy  descant  because  of  the  peculiarly  interesting  asso¬ 
ciations  connected  with  the  mightier  revolt  of  the  great 
gladiator  chieftain,  one  hundred  and  ten  years  afterwards 
upon  the  same  spot. 

There  had  been  many  cases  of  dissatisfaction,  some  of 
which  had  reached  the  ears  of  the  vigilant  Romans. 

WLivy,  XXXIX.  cap.  29. 

M  Consult  chapter  xii  of  this  work.  M  Blich  Aufst.  de.8  31. 

Livy,  XXXIX.  29,  ami  41. 


160 


EARLY  MUTINEERS  OF  ITALY. 


Great  organizations  among  the  enslaved  shepherds  and 
drovers  were  heard  of.  A  case  was  reported  in  which  de¬ 
tachments  of  half  starved  cowboys  and  ploughmen  threw 
away  their  bondage,  knocked  down  and  garroted  their 
overseer,  seized  his  knife,  his  sword  and  club  and  made 
their  way  to  the  mountain  caves  and  jungles  whence  with 
desperate  revenge  and  want,  they  returned  reinforced  to 
plunder  and  sack  their  master’s  goods.  It  got  so  that  the 
government  highways  were  unsafe;  and  in  ten  years  from 
the  time  of  our  last  story  of  the  strike  in  Etruria,  192-182, 
another  enormous  “  slave  conspiracy  ”  had  been  found  to 
exist. 

As  soon  as  reliable  news  of  this  reached  Borne,  L.  Post- 
umius 88  the  prsetor,  or  as  the  same  informant  names  him 
“  propraetor  ”  in  another  place,89  instantly  marched  with 
a  large  force  of  troops  to  the  scene.40  The  prsetor  had 
previously  had  charge  of  all  Apulia  and  Bruttium.  He 
had  the  watch  of  all  the  Adriatic  coast  from  Rhegium  to 
Mt.  Garganus,  east  of  the  Appenine  range  and  most  likely 
also  a  considerable  force  of  troops  stationed  at  different 
points  where  Roman  praesidia  or  garrisons  existed."  This 
is  self  evident ;  since  the  senators  and  knights  owning  the 
lands  and  the  slaves  who  worked  them  were  also  military 
officers  as  well  as  lawgivers  and  it  was  easy  for  them  to 
legislate  for  placing  the  standing  army  where  it  should 
best  protect  their  gluttonous  acquirement  of  wealth. 

The  details  of  the  manoeuvres,  skirmishes  and  battles 
gone  through  with  before  the  climax  was  reached,  are  left 
unwritten.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  battle  was 
fought;  because,  of  the  total  number  of  the  insurgents 
taken,  no  less  than  7,000  were  condemned  to  the  mines 
and  of  the  great  number  who  were  captured  many  were 
executed  which  means,  of  course,  crucified.41  Those  who 
were  caught  were  certainly  sent  either  to  the  mines,  ad 
metallum ,  to  the  Roman  prison,  career  TuUianus ,  or  to  the 
quarries,  lapicidinae.  But  the  most  probable  thing  is, 

88 Livy,  XXXIX.  41,  ad  fin:  “L.  Posttimitm  propraetor,  oni  Tarentum 

provincia  evenerat,  magnas  pastormn  coujugationes  vlnaicavit  et  raliqaas  Bao- 
clianalium  qu£B8tioni3  cum  onini  ett  cura.” 

:t9  Buclier.  Aufstdnde  der  unfieien  Arbelter,  8,  81,  Dote  2, 

40  WeisseNbom.  Com  on  IAvy,  xxxv.  20 

«Livy  XYYIY.  29,  *  De  multis  eumptum  est  suppliclum.'* 

<2  idem,  cep.  41:  “Partim  comprehenaoB,  Romani  ad  senatum  mlssii,  In 
earcerem  omnes  a  P.  Cornelio  conjecti  sunt.” 


IDLE  SLANDER  OF  THE  BACCHANALS.  161 


that  there  being  so  many,  they  were  distributed  according 
to  tli«  ir  adjudged  guilt,  in  the  three  prisons.43  The  horrors 
of  either  of  these  three  places  have  been  described.  But 
this  awful  retribution  inflicted  upon  the  poor  struggling 
workingmen  and  their  suffering  families  by  the  military 
arm  of  Rome,  protecting  slavery  the  most  brutal  and  de¬ 
moralizing  institution  that  ever  cursed  the  nations  oL  the 
earth  or  whetted  the  appetites  of  the  greedy  by  locking 
out  honest  laborers  from  their  natural  employ,  failed  to 
stifle  the  hopes  of  those  hardy  mountaineer  farmers  whom 
tyranny  had  turned  into  brigands.  Bucher  renders  a 
word  of  comment  on  Livy’s  short-cut  information,  to  the 
effect  that  those  who  escaped,  re-organized  their  banditti 
in  a  distant  point  and  began  anew  their  work  of  pillage, 
which  he  characterizes  as  having  become  the  plague  of  the 
times — a  plague  which  was  in  effect,  the  foundation  of  that 
terrible  brigandage,  never  suppressed  in  Italy  until  in  re¬ 
cent  years.  This,  then  is  the  origin  of  those  terrible 
“  bacchanalian  orgies  ” — the  innocent  workingmen,  long 
organized  in  the  unions  or  guilds 44  for  self-protection  and 
co-operation  entirely  under  the  laws  and  sanction  of  Numa 
and  Tullius  in  the  old,  happy  days  of  Rome’s  golden  econ¬ 
omies,  now  driven  and  dispersed  to  the  wailing  winds  of 
her  night  of  slavery ! 

Noble  writers  of  the  very  ancient  past  have  spoken 
kindly  of  the  Bacchantes  both  of  the  Greek  and  Latin¬ 
speaking  races  of  mankind,  and  lately  Bockh,  the  archse- 
ologist  wrho  has  done  more  than  any  other  man  to  reveal 
the  true  status  of  ancient  life  and  has  uncovered  many 
errors  which  policy  and  prejudice  have  cultivated,  openly 
acknowledges  that  he  finds  no  element  of  harm  or  of  wrong 
intention  in  the  bacchanalian  organizatian  among  Greek- 
writing  Societies  of  Asia  Minor,  and  his  invaluable  evi¬ 
dence  we  shall  bring  forward  in  a  subsequent  chapter,  be¬ 
cause  he  fixes  his  opinion  from  the  unerring  evidence  of 
the  stones  bearing  inscriptions  from  their  own  hands. 

Hesiod  the  poet  and  celebrated  master  who  lived  prob¬ 
ably  more  than  a  thousand  years  before  Christ  and  came 
of  the  lowly  stock,  was  the  first  known  labor  agitator.  His 
greatest  poem,  “  Works  and  Days,”  full  of  pleadings  for  the 

«  For  an  elaborate  description  of  the  trade  unions  under  Numa,  also 
on  Serrius  Tullius  and  Clodius,  see  chapters  xiii. — xix.  of  this  work. 


EARLY  MUTINEERS  OF  ITALY. 


iG  2 


poor,  is  the  first  book  on  the  labor  question.  He  may  be 
styled  the  father  of  the  emotions  of  pure  sympathy,  be¬ 
cause  the  earliest  witness. 

But  already  at  his  time  there  were  thousands  of  labor 
societies  that  were  discussing  wbh  him  this  great  prob¬ 
lem  and  with  him  practically  building  a  cult  of  co-opera¬ 
tion  full  of  the  tender  sympathies  of  human  brotherhood 
and  of  mutual  support. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


DRIMAKOS. 

i 

A  QUEER  OLD  MAN  OF  THE  MOUNTAINS. 


Strike  of  Drimakos,  the  Chian  slave — Co-operation  of  the 
Irascible  with  the  Sympathetic — A  Desperate  Greek  Bonds¬ 
man  at  Large — Labor  Grievances  of  the  ancient  Scio — Tem¬ 
perament  and  Character  of  Drimakos — Vast  Number  of  un¬ 
fortunate  Slaves — Revolt  and  Escape  to  the  Mountains — ■ 
Old  Ruler  of  the  Mountain  Crags — Rigid  Master  and  loving 
Friend — Great  Successes — Price  offered  for  his  Head — 
How  he  lost  it — The  Reaction — Rich  and  Poor  all  mourn 
his  Loss  as  a  Calamity — The  Brigands  infest  the  Island 
afresh  since  the  Demise  of  Drimakos — The  Heroon  at  his 
Tomb — An  Altar  of  Pagan  Worship  at  which  this  Labor 
Hero  becomes  the  God,  reversing  the  Order  of  the  Ancient 
Rights — Ruins  of  his  Temple  still  extant — Athenseus — 
Nymphodorus — Archaeology — Views  of  modern  Philologists. 

We  are  indebted  to  the  geographer  and  historian  Nym¬ 
phodorus  Siculus  for  an  account  of  a  very  remarkable 
strike  and  maroon-like  revolt  of  slaves  in  the  island  of 
Scio.  This  island — the  ancient  Chios — which  lies  in  the 
Greek  archipelago  at  a  distance  of  7  miles  from  the  coast 
of  Asia  Minor,  contains  an  area  of  little  more  than  500 
square  miles.  It  has,  from  high  antiquity,  been  celebrated 
for  the  ever  varying  beauty  of  its  scenery,  its  perpetual 
verdure,  its  forests  that  are  inaccessible  to  civilized  life, 
its  countless  streams  and  streamlets  whose  pure  waters 
rush  from  calcarious  steeps  and  fall  into  the  tiny  rivers 
or  the  sea. 

Chios  is  aged  as  the  primeval  home  of  the  Pelasgians 
and  the  Leleges  of  Cyclopean  fame  and  antiquity,  and 

163 


1G4 


DRIMAKOS. 


consequently  is  Greek  in  its  remotest  sense.  It  was  of 
all  lands  most  accursed  with  slavery.1  While  the  Pelopon¬ 
nesus  and  Attica  recruited  their  slave  ranks  with  their 
own  sons  and  daughters  and  their  prisoners  of  war,  Chios 
betook  herself  to  the  disgraceful  slave  traffic  to  secure  her 
recruits — a  custom  undoubtedly  borrowed  from  her 
neighbors,  the  Phoenicians.  What  the  tale  of  startling 
uprisings  and  shocking  cruelties  of  these  struggling  peo¬ 
ple  would  be  if  told,  we  know  not; 2  for  we  are  obliged  to 
let  all  knowledge  lapse  in  the  aeons  of  an  unwritten  past 
and  patiently  wait  until  the  era  of  our  story,  accidentally 
recorded  by  Nymphodorus,  a  geographer,  as  having  tran¬ 
spired  a  short  time  before  his  day. 

Judging  from  this  we  are  able  to  fix  its  date,*  not  at 
about  250  years  after  the  birth  of  Christ  as  surmised  by 
Dr.  Bucher,  but  at  a  very  much  earlier  period.  We  fol¬ 
low  the  story  of  Nymphodorus,  who  received  this  informa- 

1  All  over  Greece  and  especially  in  Chios  in  Ionia  there  was  constant  tear  of 
slave  rebellions.  Plato  ( Republic  ix.  5  fin.  and  in  very  many  other  passages), 
mentions  this  fact  as  a  constant  terror  in  those  days. 

a  The  indications  are  that  there  constantly  occurred  in  those  times  mutinies 
among  the  working  people.  Many  of  them  were  prodigious.  Dim  information 
of  one  in  Southern  Greece  is  found,  which  occurred  between  300  and  400  years 
before  Christ.  The  cruelty  of  masters  was  so  great  that  when  an  earthquake  de¬ 
stroyed  20,000  people  it  was  believed  to  be  their  punishment  for  cruelty.  The 
all-prevailing  fear  of  being  murdered  by  slaves  is  frequently  hinted  at  by  Plato. 
To  read  the  eleventh  chapter  of  the  first  book  of  Macro'bius  is  really  worth  the 
attention  of  the  thoughtful.  It  is  replete  with  evidence  that  anciently  there  was 
a  strong  anti-slavery  movement.  Macrobius,  (Saturnationm,  I.  xi.  7-9,  Eyssen- 
hardt),  says:  “  Vi^  tu  cogitare  eos  quos  ius  tuum  uocas  isdem  seminibus  ortos 
feodem  frui  cselo,  deque  uiuere,  aeque  mori?  Serui  sunt:  immo  homines.  Serui 
sunt:  immo  conserui,  si  cogitaueris  tantundem  in  utrosque  licere  fortunae.  Tam 
tu  ilium  uidere  liberum  potes  quam  ille  te  seruum.  Neecis  qua  setate  Hecuba 
seruire  cceperit,  qua  Croesus,  qua  Darei  mater,  qua  Diogenes,  qua  Plato  ipse  ? 
Postremo  quid  ita  nomen  seruitutis  hori’emus  ?  seruus  est  quidem,  sed  neces¬ 
sitate,  sed  lortasse  libero  animo  seruus  est.  Hoc  iUi  nocebit  si  ostenderis  quU 
non  sit.  Alius  libidini  seruit,  alius  auaritise,  alius  ambitioni,  omnesspei,  omnes 
timori.”  Again  (Idem  13-14;  come  the  prophetic  words:  "  Non  potest  amor  cum 
timore  misceri.  Unde  pntas  adrogantissimum  illud  manasse  prouerbium  quo 
iactatur  totidem  hostes  nobis  esse  quot  seruos  ?  Non  habemus  illos  hostes  sed 
facimus,  cum  in  illos  superbissimi  contumeliosissimi  crudelissimi  sumus  et  ad 
rabiem  nos  cogunt  peruenire  deliciae,  ut  quicquid  non  ex  uoluntate  respondit 
iram  furoremque  euocet.”  But  it  was  fear  rather  than  compassion  that  forced 
our  hard-hearted  forefathers  to  talk  in  this  strain.  . 

3  Schambach,  Italische  Sclavenauf stand,  I.,  S.  5;  refers  to  this  slave  insurrec¬ 
tion  in  the  following  clearly  expressed  language:  “  Auch  das  riche  Chios  war  zu 
derselben  Zeit  B.  C.  134,  der  Schauplatz  einer  wilden  Sclavenenrnbrung,  die  erst 
nach  mehreren  Jahren  unterdriickt  wurde.  Athenaeus  VI.  He  seems  to  have 
no  doubt  as  to  the  era  of  the  story  of  Drimakos  being  identical  with  that  of  the 
great  servile  wars.  But  what  time  did  it  begin  ?  This  is  the  important  ques¬ 
tion.  Athenians  says  or  intimates  that  Drimakos  was  in  the  vigor  of  manhood 
when  he  began  the  revolt;  but  he  was  an  old  man  when  he  died  and  up  to  the  last 
the  malcontents  held  their  ground.  Now  if  we  agree  with  Schambach  that  his 
“  zu  derselben  Zeit  ”  meant  the  end  of  the  period,  or  thereabout,  we  must  add  at 
least  30  years  to  allow  him  to  become  and  old  man  which  makes  the  rebellion  tu 
have  begun  about  the  year  B.  C.  304. 


HOW  WE  COME  TO  KNOW  THE  FACTS. 


165 


tion  directly  from  the  Chians  themselves,  from  whom  he 
must  have  received  his  data  while  visiting  the  island  and 
its  inhabitants  in  search  of  information  for  his  book  which 
was  a  description  of  the  coast  of  Asia  minor  and  the  mul¬ 
titude  of  islands,  large  and  small,  that  stud  the  Archi¬ 
pelago. 

The  islanders  recounted  to  Nymphodorus  that  a  slave 
named  Drimakos  had  lived  and  died  in  those  parts,  whose 
history  was  remarkable.  Consequently  this  Sicilian  Greek, 
whose  errand  was  knowledge,  became  curious  to  know 
about  the  strange  man  Drimakos  and  all  the  particulars, 
in  order  to  embellish  the  chapter  of  his  “  Nomima  Asias” 
or  customs  and  habits  of  the  Asians — in  other  words,  his 
descriptive  geography.  And  now  that  our  attention  is 
fastened  upon  so  weird  an  object  as  a  runaway  slave 
with  drawn  dagger,  bolting  from  his  pursuing  owner  and 
climbing  a  crag  to  a  mountain  den  with  a  dozen  abolition¬ 
ists  as  desperate  as  he,  we  pause  to  ask,  who  is  this  Nym- 
phodorus? 

Alas  such  curiosity  is  rewarded  with  the  aggravation  of 
a  mystery!  We  know  nothing  of  Nymphodorus.  We 
only  know  that  he  lived  and  wrote  in  his  geography  a  de¬ 
scription,  not  only  of  the  island  of  Scio  as  it  was  before 
the  time  of  Christ,  but  also  of  the  customs  and  usuages 
that  were  practiced  by  its  inhabitants;  and  interspersed 
in  his  work  there  was  many  an  incident,  description 
and  story,  one  of  which  was  this  tale  of  Drimakos,  the 
runaway  slave.  We  know  that  this  priceless  literary  gem, 
like  the  noble  but  lost  chapters  of  Diodorus,  and  Sallust, 
of  Livy,  of  Fenestella,  Dion  Cassius,  Theophanes,  Nicolaus 
Damascenus,  Csecilius  Calactenus  and  a  wealth  of  others 
with  their  flood  of  facts,  come  to  us  only  in  the  second¬ 
hand  and  oblique  mention  of  others  who  read  them  before 
they  were  destroyed;  or  sometimes  in  multilated  frag¬ 
ments  of  the  originals  which  escaped  the  vandals  who 
perhaps  thought  that  by  robbing  posterity  of  facts  that 
disclosed  the  beastliness  of  their  institutions  they  might 
confer  a  favor  upon  the  sin  as  well  as  the  sinners  whose 
power  they  fawned  upon  and  flattered.  At  any  rate  the 
work  of  Nymphodorus  is  lost;  and  the  question  remains: 
who  is  Nymphodorus  and  what  about  Drimakos  the  Chian 
runaway  slave? 


16G 


DRIMAKOS. 


The  fact  is,  Athenseus,4  an  Egyptian  of  antiquity,  saw 
and  read  this  book  of  Nymphodorus  the  geographer,  and 
in  his  “  Deipnosophistae  or  Banquet  of  the  Learned,”  a 
pot  pourri  or  hodge-podge  of  science,  history  and  anec¬ 
dote,  reproduced  for  us  the  essential  facts  concerning  this 
affair  of  Drimakos,  which  was  no  little  incident  to  make 
light  of,  but  a  vast  insurrection  of  slaves,  like  that  of  Eunus 
and  Spartacus,  involving  a  lifetime,  with  bloody  wars  and  a 
great  and  terrible  and  successful  struggle  of  “  outlaws  ” 
against  society.  It  is  Athenseus,  the  middlem  an  then,  not 
Nymphodorus,  whom  we  must  follow  and  carefully  scan, 
picking  every  word  down  to  the  bone,  to  get  the  meat  of 
his  language;  always  suspicious  enough  of  translations  to 
avoid  them  entirely,  especially  when  exhuming  such  liter¬ 
ary  mummies  as  those  wrapped  and  preserved  in  chemicals 
musty  with  the  taint  of  labor. 

Nymphodorus  in  his  lost  work  on  the  customs  and  usa¬ 
ges  of  the  Asians,6  says  it  was  not  long  before  his  time 
that  the  facts  concerning  Drimakos  occurred.  But  al¬ 
though  no  doubts  exist  regarding  the  truth  of  the  general 
facts,  nobody  is  clear  as  to  the  exact  time  of  N  ymphodorus. 
Whether  the  insurrection  of  the  Chian  slaves  was  a  spas¬ 
modic  affair,  belonging  to  one  lifetime,  or  whether  the 
episode  of  Drimakos  was  simply  one  incident  distinguished 
for  its  magnitude  and  duration  among  many  that  for  ages 
were  constantly  occurring,  is  a  problem.6  W e  shall  pre¬ 
sent  the  facts  as  given  in  the  Deipnosophistae  of  Athenseus 
carefully  adhering  to  the  points  in  the  text  and  seasoning 
the  story  only  to  befit  the  character  of  our  pages  for  the 
general  reader.  But  there  seems  to  be  no  evidence  to 
confute  our  theory  that  Nymphodorus  wrote  his  story  at 
least  a  century  before  Christ,  and  that  the  true  age  of 
Drimakos  was  that  of  the  other  great  slave  rebellions  which 
began  to  rage  about  a  century  and  a  half  before  Christ. 

4  Most  chronologists  make  Athenseos  to  have  lived  about  A.  D.  250.  Dr. 
Bhcher,  therefore,  must  certainly  be  entirely  incorrect  in  putting  the  date  of  the 
work  of  Nymphodorus  at  “Mitte  des  dritten  Jahrhundertes  nack  Christo;  Auf- 
stade  der  unfi-eien  Arbeiter,  S.  22,  since  Athenaeus  himself  lived  before  that  time. 
We  are  fully  confirmed  in  the  opinion  that  Drimakos’  uprising  was  contem¬ 
poraneous  with  that  of  Eunus  of  Sicily  and  Aristonicus  of  Pergamus,  and  was  an 
outcrop  of  that  great  agitation. 

fi  Nojaijaa  Ac n'a?.  The  island  of  Chios  was  only  separated  from  the  continent 
of  Asia  by  a  strait  7  miles  wide,  and  easily  visible  from  the  main  shore.  For  a 
good  description  of  this  island,  see  Eckenbreeher:  Die  Insel  Chios,  Berlin,  1845. 

c  Pauly’s  Real  Encyclopaedia.  Vol.  V,  S.  193,  contains  an  article  from  Wester* 
mann,  discussing  the  probable  time  of  Nymphodorus,  q.  v. 


HIS  DESPERATE  FLIGHT, \ 


167 


From  the  story  as  related  by  Athenseus  it  does  not  ap¬ 
pear  that  Drimakos  escaped  from  his  master  amid  scenes 
of  blood-shedding,  but  that  those  horrors  were  reserved 
for  the  immediate  future.  He  was  then  a  young  man  of 
great  sternness  and  determination,  shrinking  from  noth¬ 
ing  he  had  set  his  mind  upon,  and  too  nervous  and  sensi¬ 
tive  to  bear  the  galling  humiliations  of  slavery.  He  was 
also  a  man  of  sympathies,  and  felt  for  his  fellow  slaves  as 
well  as  himself.  In  such  a  frame  of  mind  he  could  not 
but  have  felt  deeply  for  the  thousands  of  poor  creatures 
who  had  been  bought  or  kidnapped  from  their  native 
homes  and  brought  to  this  island  to  be  sold  like  animals 
and  here  forced  to  delve  under  the  merciless  lash.  Most 
of  the  labor  of  land  culture  and  mechanics,  all  the  house¬ 
hold  drudgery,  as  well  as  the  attendance  upon  arrogant 
lords  and  ladies,  and  the  office  work  of  the  government, 
was  performed  in  those  days  by  slaves;  and  Chios  was  no 
exception. 

Like  Achseos,  Cleon,  Athenion  and  Spartacus,  the  des¬ 
perate  young  man  broke  his  bonds  by  some  violent  effort. 
It  may  have  been  the  immediate  result  of  a  quarrel  with 
his  master  or  his  overseer,  or  perhaps  a  conspiracy  of  a 
handful  of  fellow  bondsmen  as  in  the  case  of  Athenion 
or  Spartacus;  perhaps  a  stampede  after  a  battle  with  clubs 
and  butcher-knives.  One  thing  we  know  upon  such  points 
in  general:  masters  were  on  the  alert  at  all  times,  having 
little  confidence  in  their  human  chattels,  and  kept  them 
under  guard,  often  chained  at  night  and  in  many  places, 
branded. 

When  Drimakos  arrived  in  the  mountains  with  his  band 
of  runaways,  he  found  in  the  clefts  of  rock  and  among  the 
sun-warmed  ledges,  suitable  fastnesses  wherein  not  only 
to  hide  in  safety  but  to  sleep,  and  obtain  repose.  Hunt¬ 
ers  and  other  mountaineers  had  been  there  before  them 
and  built  an  occasional  cabin.  With  the  rocks  and  frag¬ 
ments  they  erected  more,  and  with  axes  and  perhaps  saws 
and  other  tools,  covered  them  and  constructed  for  them¬ 
selves  rough  seats  and  tables.  But  food  was  only  to  be 
had  in  the  granaries  and  houses  below,  in  the  richly  cul¬ 
tivated  valleys,  and  in  the  distant  city  they  had  left. 

Here  the  masters  were  up  in  arms,  ready  for  an  expedi¬ 
tion  in  pursuit  of  their  escaped  bondsmen.  The  word 


168 


D  R I M  A  1C  OS. 


went  vigorously  forth  that  they  must  be  retaken,  either 
dead  or  alive.  On  the  other  hand  while  preparations  were 
making  for  a  grand  pursuit,  other  slaves  took  flight  and 
centered  to  the  mountain  fissures  of  Drimakos,  now  their 
acknowledged  leader. 

How  they  got  their  first  supply  of  provisions  we  are 
unaware,  hut  they  certainly  did  not  starve.  The  same 
question  might  in  the  absence  of  these  particulars  also  be 
asked  as  to  how  they  were  supplied  with  arms  with  which 
to  do  battle  with  their  pursuers.  What  we  know  is  that 
they  were  the  recipients  of  good  luck;  partly  through 
their  own  courage  and  partly  through  a  combination  of 
circumstances  which  favored  them  from  the  start. 

The  whole  truth  is,  they,  like  Eunus  and  the  smiling 
goddess  Demeter,  or  Spartacus  and  his  fortune-telling 
wife,  who  foretold  prodigies  of  happiness,  had  also  their 
Messiah,  soothsayer,  prophet  and  warrior  in  the  person 
of  Drimakos,  whom  they  implicitly  obeyed  and  worshiped 
with  a  superstitious  awe;  and  so  long  as  the  enthusiasm 
of  this  belief  in  him  as  a  Savior  remained  untarnished, 
their  heaven-inspired  dash  and  valor  were  insurmounta¬ 
ble  and  their  prowess  was  unscathed.  Moreover  there 
prevailed  a  superstition  among  the  slave-owning  Chians 
themselves,  against  slavery  and  especially  this  class  of 
slave-holding  practiced  on  the  island  of  Chios.  In  proof 
of  this  we  quote  from  Athenseus  the  following: 

“Nymphodorus,  it  is  thus  seen,  has  furnished  us  with 
the  account;  but  I  find  that  in  manv  copies  of  his  history 
Drimakos  is  not  spoken  of  by  name.  Yet  I  cannot  imag¬ 
ine  that  any  of  you  are  ignorant  of  what  Herodotus,  that 
prince  of  historians,  said  regarding  the  Chian,  Panionios, 
and  what  righteous  punishment  he  underwent  for  having 
castrated  three  boys  and  sold  them.7  Then  again  Nicol- 

T  Herodotus,  Historian ,  viii.  Urania,  105-106.  The  horrible  story  of  revenge 
is  thus  told  by  Herodotus  and  tersely  illustrates  the  almost  inconceivable  bra* 
tality  and  cruelty  of  slavery  or  of  the  greed  which  inspired  ifc.  “  Eie  rovTeW  Si; 
IlTjSacreuji/  6  'EpMOTi/aos  Jfv  t<j*  fieyianj  riait  fjSri  aSu cqOevri  eyevero  navroav  tuv  rjfieit 
18/xev.  aAoi/ra  yap  air ov  viro  nokefiCuv  ical  no»\e6fievov  taveerai  Hc-vicSvios,  avr/p 
XIos,  6s  T7)v  £6i]v  Karetrrqaaro  air*  epytov  avoautiTarutv,  o/cws  yap  Krqaaxro  iraiSas 
«iSfos  inafifiev ovs,  eKrdp.vu>v,  ayiveuv  eirwAee  t!s  2ap5is  re  koX  'Ejteaov  jq>T)fidTOiV 
fityak  i»v.  nap  a.  yap  roicri  /3apj8apoi<rt  Tiputorepot  eiai  oi  cvvov^ot  niaTtot  eivaca  tt;s 
vaat]%  Twv  evoo\(*av»  aAAous  re  St)  6  Kavidaviot  c£erap.e  7toAAovs,  are  jrocev/tevos  << 
rowr«wv  Tr)v  ^ot)v,  km  Sr)  Kal  tovtov.  <al  ov  yip  ri  rrivra.  iSyarv^ee  6  'Epfioripot, 
iviKVeerai  e/<  rd>v  SapSiwv  nap'x  fiaat \rja  pter’  aXAtuv  Stipwy  vpovov  Si  npoiovrot 
namDV  roiv  evvov\mv  irifiijifcr)  pidAtara  napi  3ep£jj.  106.  '(It  Si  rb  <rrpirtvp.a  rb 
(ItfHTutbv  Sofia  6  £aaiAcv«  ini  rat  ’A^jjvas  «uv  iv  SapSioi,  ivOav ra  Caracas  Kara  fiij 


ANCIENT  ANTI-SLAVERY  DISCUSSION .  1(59 


aus  the  peripatetic  as  well  as  Poseidonius  the  stoic  both 
wrote  in  their  histories  that  the  Chians  were  afterwards 
enslaved  by  Methridates,  tyrant  of  Cappadocia,  and  bound 
hand  and  foot,  were  given  over  to  their  own  slaves.  Surely 
the  gods  were  angry  with  the  Chians.” 8 

Nor  was  this  superstition  against  all  kinds  of  chattel 
slavery  confined  to  the  island  of  Chios.  The  people  of 
Attica  and  different  parts  of  Greece  were  tormented  with 
conscience  on  account  of  their  unjust  system  of  slavery 
and  the  ever-recurring  revolts  of  their  slaves;  and  the 
Lockrians,  who  never  to  lerated  slavery,  taunted  them  for 
their  wickedness.9  But  the  revolts  of  the  slaves  them¬ 
selves,  and  the  growing  number  of  the  psomokolaphoi  or 
runaways  and  the  consequent  loss  to  their  masters,  to¬ 
gether  with  the  desperate,  often  bloody  deeds  of  these 
runaways  whetted  their  sins  and  inflamed  their  fears  lest 
the  gods  should  frown  upon  them  as  the  upholders  of  this 
national  abomination.  Add  to  all  this  the  further  and 
significant  fact  that  the  freedmen  all  around  them  were  in 
sympathy  with  the  slaves  and  were  often  organized  into 
powerful  unions  which  sometimes  even  permitted  the 
slaves  to  membership.10  Especially  was  this  the  case 

Tt  vprjypa  6  "Eppbnpos  «s  yyv  rr\v  Mvertijv,  ryv  Xtoi  pev  vepovrat,  fArapvevs  be 
KaXitrai,  evpiaxet  rbv  Uavuitviov  evOavra.  emyvovs  be  eheye  npos  avrov  7roAAov?  /cat 
AiA lov?  Aoyovs*  irpStra  pev  oi  Karakeywv  baa  avros  fii’  exeivov  e\oi  aya 0a'  bevrepa 
oi  oi  itvia^yevpevos  avri  rovreotv  baa  piv  ayaOa  noirjaei ,  rjv  Kopiadgev 05  tow?  o iteras 
oiKeji  eKeivj) •  Stare  vnobe£apevov  aapevov  rovs  Aoyovs  rbv  tlavtiaviov  Kopiaai  ra 
ri/cva  Kai  ryv  y vvaiKa-  us  be  apa  navoucifl  ptv  irepteAajSe,  eAey*  o  ’Epponpos  rdbe% 
*‘*0  navrav  avbpuv  fjbri  \pd\iara  air ’  epyuv  avoaiuraruv  rbv  fiiov  Krrjaapeve,  ri  ai 
eyit  Katcov  y\  avrbs  y  r S>v  eputv  ns  epyaaaro,  rj  ae,  ij  rStv  aStv  nva ,  on  pe  avry  avbpos 
eiro Ctjaas  rb  pybev  elvat;  eboicees  re  Oeovs  Krjaeiv  01  a  ipnxavSt  rore‘  ol  ae  irouj aavra 
avoata,  voptp  Sixaitp  xPf(0fJLel ’0li  vnrjyayov  is  X*Pa?  T*S  epa?,  Stare  ae  pr)  pep\j/aa0ai 
ttjv  air*  epeo  rot  iaopevqv  fi^/clJl^,,  'Os  fie  oi  ravra  uveibiae,  axOevruv  rStv  naibutv  is 
bipiv,  rjvayKa^ero  6  IlavLuvios  r Stv  iotvrov  iraibuv  reaaepotv  iovrutv  ra  atfiota  on rorap- 
veiv  avayxa£6pevos  fie  eiroiee  ravra’  avrov  re ,  ws  ravra  epyaaaro,  oi  naibes  avay «a- 
£opevo t  aitirap vov.  Uavuoviov  pev  vvv  ovrut  irepirjhOe  rj  re  riats  xai  o  ’Epponpos'  ’ 

8  Athenaeus  Dcipnosophistas,  Lib.  VI.  cap.  vii. 

•  Athenaeus,  idem,;  Bockh,  Public  Economy  of  the  Athenians,  mentions  it. 

10  See  Lliderg,  Die  Dionysischen  KunsUer  S.  46-47,  also  S.  22.  We  have  how¬ 
ever  given  Liiders’  views  and  proof  (seep.  98  and  note  27)  in  full  in  another  chap¬ 
ter,  q.  v.  The  evidence  as  to  slaves  being  sometimes  members  is  overwhelming. 
Foucart,  Associations  Religiemes  Chez  Les  Grecs,  pp.  6-6  says:  “II  en  6tait  tout  au- 
trement  pour  les  thiases  et  les  branes.  Non-seulement  ils  6taient  ouverts  aux 
femmes  mais  encore  les  Strangers,  les  personnes  de  condition  ou  d’origine  ser¬ 
vile  y  avaient  acces.  Ce  dernier  point  est  d’une  grande  importance,  fort  heur- 
eusement,  les  tSmoignages  des  monuments  Spigraphiques  sont  assez  precis  pour 
l’Stablir  avec  une  entiere  Evidence.  B  serait  inutile  de  citer  toutes  les  inscrip¬ 
tions  qui  en  donnent  la  preuve ;  j’en  ai  eeulement  choisi  quelques-unes,  pour 
montrer  que  cette  composition  Stait  la  m§me  dans  les  diffSrents  pays.  Les  ex- 
emples  sont  assez  nombreux  pour  qu  il  soit  permis  d’btendre  la  conclusion  aux 
cas  mSmes  od  la  preuve  directs  fait  defaut,  et  de  regarder  l’admission  des  tem- 
mes,  des  strangers,  des  affranchis  et  des  esclaves,  comme  un  caractbre  commur. 
de  toutes  ces  associations.”  Foucart  further  shows  that  freedmen  and  freed- 


170 


LRJMAKOS. 


among  the  Greek-speaking  slaves — far  more  so  than  among 
the  Romans — and  in  these  society  meetings  they  all, 
bondsmen  and  freedmen  alike,  under  protection  of  their 
secret  eranos  or  union,  discussed  their  sufferings  and  per¬ 
haps  also  concocted  their  plots  of  salvation.  Thus,  from 
all  sources — the  inner-consciences,  the  frowning  gods,  the 
slaves’  own  grievances  and  the  constantly  recurring  strikes 
maintained  by  runaways  and  bloody  battles — greedy  cap¬ 
italists  were  reminded  of  this  abomination  which  they  were 
hugging,  even  in  ancient  days. 

The  words  of  Nymphodorus  plainly  tell  us  that  in  the 
Island  of  Chios  revolts  and  escape  to  the  mountains  were 
of  common  occurrence.  His  words  reproduced  in  the 
banquet  of  the  learned  by  Athenseus  make  the  matter 
plain.  We  give  them  below  in  a  note  from  the  old  scholi¬ 
ast  latin  version  of  1557,  as  they  introduce  the  story  in 
plain  words.11  The  reader  is  now  fully  prepared  by  this 
description  of  the  surroundings  to  comprehend  the  story 
of  Drimakos  whom  we  left  in  the  mountains  with  his  fol¬ 
lowers,  busily  at  work  with  saws  and  axes  building  rough 
cabins  and  meditating  a  desperate  swoop  upon  the  city 
they  had  left,  that  they  might  seize  a  part  of  the  grain 
and  stores  which  their  own  former  labor  and  that  of  their 
fellow  bondsmen  had  created.  This  expedition  was  well 
planned.  Of  this  we  have  assurance  in  the  words  of 

woman  got  their  freedom  many  times  through  their  organization.  Under  the 
head  “AfErar.chis  ou  esclaves,”  p.  7,  he  cites  inscriptions  whose  epigraphs  clearly 
explain  that  slaves  were  members  in  Eh  odes.  We  have  elsewhere  shown  that 
the  ancient  states  owned  slaves.  They  were  known  as  public  servants.  “  Une 
inscription  de  l’ile  de  Khodes  mentionne  une  societe  religieuse  compose  des 
esclaves  publics  de  la  ville  (voyez  p.  112,  note  4).  La  mutilation  du  monument 
enleve  a  ce  temoignage  une  partie  de  sa  valeur.  Mais  l’examen  des  noms  pro- 
pres  qui  se  renconti'ent  dans  les  autres  inscriptions  prouve  que  ces  associations 
admettaint  les  aft'ranchis  et  probablement  meme  les  esclaves."  On  page  112, 
cited  by  Foucart  occur  the  words:  “Un  fragment  description,  regtitulpar  Keil 
d’une  maniere  bardie,  mais,  a  tout  prendre,  vraisemblable,  montferait  la  com¬ 
position  particuliere  de  la  soci6te  qui  se  placalt.  sousle  patronage  de  Zeus  Atabv- 
rios.  File  aurait  ete  formee  des  esclaves  publics  de  la  ville  de  Rhodes,  et  c’est 
1  un  d  eux  qui  aurait  exerce  le  sacerdoce.  'Ynep  Aioaaradvpi.  aarav  tuv  ras  irtfAios 
tSovAam,  Euai.  .eco?  ypap.pa.Tevs  Sap  oaios  i eparev  eras  Aio?  ’ATadvpi'ov  .  .  .  rcor 
icvaiuiv  ‘PoSiW  av  eQpxe  A  tl  ’A  radvpi a» ....  PhilologUS,  2d  suppl.,  p.  612.*'  It 
seems  exceedingly  strange  that  this  learned  author  should  lack  the  power  of 
penetration  so  far  as  to  continually  make  a  hack  of  a  pet  idiosyncrasy  regarding 
these  innumerable  organizations  having  been  strictly  religious  orders.  The  fact 
is,  as  we  continually  show,  braced  also  by  epigraphists  like  Mommsen  and  Bockh 
that  they  were  bona  fide  labor  societies  compelled  under  vigorous  laws  to  cover 
their  real  object  with  the  shield  of  the  Pagan  faith. 

11  “Haec  igitur  de  lllis  scripsit  Nymphodorus  in  Asise  Navigatione,  Chiormn 
servi  ab  ipsis  dominis  aufugientes  in  moutes  sublimioraque,  ipsorum  devastantes 
multi  simul  coacti  sunt.  Est  enim  ipsa  insula  aspera  multisque  arboribus  re 
ferts.”  Athenseus.  VI.,  chap,  vii.,  (Natalis  de  Comisibus,  Veneto,  15561. 


BLOODY  AND  DECISIVE  BATTLES. 


171 


Athemeus  wlio  says  that  Drimakos  was  not  really  the  ag¬ 
gressor  hut  that  the  Chians  sent  an  expedition  into  the 
fugitives’  retreat,  and  that  the  latter  being  favored  and 
well  generaled,  came  off  victorious.  This  means  that  the 
Chians  were  decoyed  into  ambush  by  Drimakos,  attacked, 
cut  to  pieces,  their  arms  captured  and  the  slaves  left  com¬ 
plete  masters  of  the  field.  In  other  words,  there  was 
fought  a  bloody  battle,  even  a  succession  of  battles,  and  of 
such  terrible  cruelty  that  even  the  heart  of  the  stem  Dri¬ 
makos  was  melted  with  sympathy  and  he  soon  sought  a 
council  of  arbitration  to  put  a  stop  to  the  ruthless  effusion 
of  blood.  But  this  did  not  occur  until  sometime  after  the 
first  decisive  contest  with  the  masters  was  fought. 

When,  by  this  and  other  victories,  the  slaves  found 
themselves  in  full  possession  of  their  caverns,  and  their 
new  home  supplied  with  provisions,  their  soldiers  with 
arms  captured  from  the  defeated  masters,  and  their  num¬ 
bers  much  augmented  by  incoming  detachments  of  runa¬ 
ways  from  all  parts  of  the  island,  they  began  to  think  of 
discipline  and  order.  Drimakos  was  made  king,  com¬ 
mander-in-chief  and  despot ;  and  he  began  to  exercise  an 
iron  rule  over  his  subjects  nearly  as  severe,  but  more  just 
than  that  of  their  former  masters.12  Having  vanquished 
the  armies  of  the  masters  in  repeated  and  bloody  battles, 
causing  a  state  of  things  which  may  have  lasted  for  years 
— since  both  the  duration  and  dates  are  forgotten  by  our 
historian — the  slaves  continued  to  get  their  provisions 
from  the  granaries,  barns,  farms  and  stores,  in  the  follow¬ 
ing  extraordinary  manner: 

A  council  or  conference  was  called  by  this  victorious 
man  of  the  mountains,  whereat  the  Chian  masters  were 
invited  to  participate  with  him  and  his  victorious  legions 
on  equal  terms,  under  a  flag  of  truce.  When  the  gener¬ 
als  and  magistrates  of  the  city  and  the  rebels  met,  king 
Drimakos  made  a  speech  which  contained  a  covenant  of 
arbitration,  perhaps  unheard  of  before  or  since.  We  give 

12  Thelatin  version  Athen,  VI.  chap.  viii.  Natal,  de  Com ,  Ven.  1556,  tells  it  in 
these  words :  “  Paulo  ante  nostra  tempora  famulum  quendam,  narrantipsi  Chii, 
profugisse  atque  in  ipsis  montibus  habitasse,  qui  cum  esset  bellicosus  animoque 
virili  fugitivoruru  servorum  Dux  ac  imperator  declaratus  erat,  non  aliter  atque 
reges  solet  exercitus  cum  sepius  postea  Chii  copias  in  eum  eduxissent,  nihilque 
facere  posse nt,  ubi  eos  Primacus  (sic  enim  servus  nominatur)  frustra  interior 
conspexit,  sic  ad  ilios  locutus  eet.”  The  gist  ol  his  speech  we  give  in  full,  Vide 
Supra. 


DRIMAKOS. 


173 


the  substance  of  his  proposition  in  his  own  words,  in  order 
to  show  that  singular  examples  of  co-operation  and  arbi¬ 
tration  have  been  tried  in  the  remote  past: 

“An  oracle  has  been  consulted  and  our  revolt  has,  from 
the  start,  been  upheld  by  the  gods.  We  shell  never  lay 
down  our  arms.  We  shall  never  again  submit  to  the 
drudgery  of  bondage.  We  are  fixed  in  our  own  minds 
and  act  under  counsel  of  the  Almighty.  Nevertheless  if 
you  follow  my  advice  and  adhere  to  it  in  the  strictest  faith, 
after  signing  this  pledge  and  contract,  the  war  may  be 
terminated  and  the  further  effusion  of  blood  dispensed 
with;  then  we  can  mutually  live  in  peace  and  enjoy  tran¬ 
quility  on  terms  which  wall  be  full  of  prosperity  to  the 
whole  state  of  which  we  all  are  members.” 

The  Chians  who  had  been  humbled  by  their  defeats  and 
losses  consented  to  an  armistice  of  war,  thus  recogniz¬ 
ing  for  the  slaves  the  dignity  of  a  public  enemy.  They  found 
it  a  convenience,  doubtless  against  their  will,  to  submit  to 
propositions  of  reason.  Drimakos  then  explained  his  plan: 

“  What  we  want  is  enough  to  subsist  upon; — no  more. 
In  future,  when  hunger  and  need  inspire  us,  we  shall  visit 
your  granaries,  flocks  and  stores  and  take  what  we  require 
but  always  by  weight  and  measure.  The  weights  and 
measures  are  to  be  these  which  we  have  brought  you  and 
exhibit  before  your  eyes.  Here  also  is  a  signet1*  with 
which  wre  propose  to  seal  up  your  storehouses  and  grana¬ 
ries  after  taking  from  them  what  we  require,  rs  by  this 
means  you  will  be  able  to  distinguish  our  work  from  that 
of  common  robbers.  Regarding  the  slaves  who  in  future 
shall  escape  from  you  to  our  camp,  I  shall  rigidly  investi¬ 
gate  the  causes  of  each  man’s  running  away,  weigh  his 
story  carefully,  and  after  submitting  his  case  to  an  unbi¬ 
ased  examination,  if  he  be  found  to  have  suffered  injustice 
at  your  hand,  proving  that  he  has  been  treated  wrongly 
by  you,  I  shall  protect  him.  If  on  the  contrary,  the  run¬ 
away  slave  bo  found  not  to  have  had  a  sufficient  cause,  I 
shall  return  him  to  his  master.” 

Drimakos,  it  is  seen,  thus  recognized  and  upheld  slavery 
as  an  institution,  only  punishing  its  abuses.  This  fact 

™  Tty  t he  word  used  in  Athenaens  meaning  signet  or  seal  we  are  probably  to 
mv'o  and  i  contrivance  of  some  kind  for  locking  up  the  -houses  and 
i>;  .ai.-.Uts—  locks  aud  keys 


HIS  METHOD  OF  INTERPROTECTION.  173 


corresponds  with  the  ancient  opinion  that  slavery  was 
right;  a  thing  not  at  all  to  be  wondered  at,  considering 
the  prevalence  of  this  aged  institution  and  the  inculcation 
of  the  competitive  system  through  its  massive  religious 
and  political  machinery,  based  upon  an  unscrupulous 
ownership  alike  of  men  and  things,  by  the  ancient  law  of 
entailment  and  primogeniture.  We  do  not  find  that  the 
slave  system  was  ever  publicly  and  boldly  and  philosophi¬ 
cally  denounced  as  an  institution.  But  it  is  certain  that 
t  was  fought  in  the  secret  unions  and  communes  until 
'esus  daringly  came  out  in  open  discourse  against  it  and 
founded  Christianity  upon  the  new  basis  of  absolute 
equality  of  man,  which  was  essentially,  as  the  results  have 
proved,  a  revolution  or  upturning  of  the  entire  system  of 
paganism  and  its  heathenish  discrimination  between  the 
grandee  and  his  human  chattels;  and  to  him  must  be 
ascribed  the  authorship  of  the  idea  of  unconditional  eman¬ 
cipation.  But  while  Drimakos  could  not  unscrupulously 
war  with  slavery  as  an  institution  his  course  is  exactly  in 
ine  with  the  great  movement  of  his  day  which  in  other 
chapters  we  are  describing14  in  these  arguments.  He  be¬ 
trays  himself  in  the  foregoing  speech  to  have  been,  like 
Eunus,  a  soothsayer,  or  prophet,  or  Messiah,  such  as  the 
innumerable  sodalicia  and  thiasoi,  or  labor  unions  every¬ 
where  possessed.16  He,  like  Spartacus,  Blossius,  Eunus, 

and  the  rest,  was  infused  with  this  strange,  everywhere- 

prevailing  idea  of  some  Messiah  coming  to  the  redemption 
of  the  poor  slave.  All  the  slave  runaways  were  supersti¬ 
tious,  and  used  in  good  faith  and  in  harmonious  consis¬ 
tency  with  their  creed,  this  nympholepsy  of  the  Messiah, 
long  before  the  real  Messiah  came.16 

These  conditions  of  Drimakos  were  readily  agreed  to 
by  the  Chian  capitalists,  who  were  not  in  a  condition  to 
refuse.  In  consequence,  so  soon  as  the  stipulations  were 
formally  signed  they  went  into  effect  and  the  slave-king 
for  many  years  had  only  to  send  his  troops  boldly  and 
openly  on  their  strange  marauding  adventures,  always  tak- 

w  See  chapter  xxii  and  elsewhere,  on  Trade  Unions  which  adduces  proof  that 
the  freedmen  arose  ont  cf  slavery  through  their  own  efforts  and  argued  up  the 
Idea  from  their  own  narrower  basis. 

15  Consult  Lilders.  Die  Dionysischen  Kims  tier,  Foil  carts,  Associations  Religieuses 
for  the  Greek,  and  Yi  n^insen.  dt  Collegii  et  SodaUciis  Romanorwtx  for  the  la  tin 
anions,  passim.  16  Hee  BiScher,  Aufst.  d.  unf.  Arb.  S,  79. 


174 


PRIM  AK  05. 


ing  quantities  by  weight  and  measure  as  agreed  upon,  and 
always  locking  up  the  storehouses  and  granaries  when  they 
left  them.  The  result  was  a  mercy  to  the  whole  island 
which  had  been  hitherto  infested  with  robbers.  It  is  not 
stated,  but  left  to  be  inferred  from  the  sequel,  that  Dri- 
makos  drove  all  other  robbers  from  the  island;  for  we 
know  that  his  armed  force,  now  legalized,  acted  as  a  sort 
of  police  to  the  whole  personality  and  property  of  the 
people,  slaves  included.  He  adhered  with  severity  to  the 
stipulation  of  the  agreement  and  when  runaways  appealed 
to  him  for  protection  he  instituted  a  strict  investigation 
of  their  case;  those  not  having  been  maltreated  being  al¬ 
ways  sent  back  to  their  owners.  This  of  course  had  the 
effect  to  .cause  masters  to  treat  their  slaves  with  kindness 
and  never  to  overwork  or  otherwise  abuse  them,  lest  they 
incur  the  terrible  wrath  of  the  god-favored  umpire  seated 
on  his  throne  among  the  crags  and  eagles-nests  of  the 
mountains.  On  the  other  hand  the  would-be  runaways 
were  surer  to  reflect  cautiously  before  making  the  attempt, 
being  in  deadly  fear  at  the  just  judgment  of  the  despot 
before  whom  they  were  to  be  arraigned  for  trial  imme¬ 
diately  after  their  suit  before  him  for  protection.  Thus 
the  revolted  slave  became  not  only  an  absolute  ruler,  king 
and  general-in-chief  of  the  slave  population,  but  also,  in 
some  respects,  a  judge  in  a  court  of  justice  with  a  stand¬ 
ing  army  at  command  to  enforce  his  decisions — an  umpire 
over  the  whole  population,  bond  and  free. 

Years  rolled  by  and  Drimakos  felt  old  age  approaching, 
yet  did  not  flinch  from  what  he  considered  the  dignity 
and  honor  of  his  plan  of  justice.  He  remained  at  the 
helm,  punishing  or  rewarding  like  a  czar,  until  he  was  old 
and  feeble  and  weary  of  a  lengthier  existence.  He  had  a 
friend  in  the  person  of  a  young  man,  also  a  psomokolo- 
phos  or  runaway,  who  probably  deserved  this  appellative 
for  being  pliant  and  perhaps  a  little  parasitical  and  given 
to  the  recipiency  of  tit-bits  in  payment  for  flatteries  in¬ 
geniously  brought  to  the  old  man’s  ear.  He,  like  many 
of  the  other  slaves,  was  a  native  of  a  distant  land,  having 
when  very  young  been  kidnapped  or  taken  a  prisoner  of 
war,  and  as  a  victim  to  the  vicious  slave-trade,  sold  to  the 
planters  of  Chios.  He  was  one  of  those  young  fugitive 
slaves  who  had  proved  his  grievance  under  the  iavestiga- 


HIS  ASTONISHING  DEATH. 


175 


tion,  been  accepted,  retained  and  trusted.  Drimakos 
loved  him  and  confided  in  his  youthful  honesty. 

Meantime  the  Chians,  unsatisfied  with  what  they  re¬ 
garded  as  their  burden,  offered  a  large  reward  in  gold  to 
whomsoever  should  bring  them  the  head  of  Drimakos. 
This  they  did  against  their  true  interests;  since  at  that 
moment  while  under  the  eagle-eyed  justice  of  this  weird 
old  judge  in  the  mountain  cliffs,  their  true  interests  were 
being  more  reasonably  and  economically  subserved  than 
ever  before  or  afterwards,  as  the  sequel  of  this  story  bears 
record.  Perhaps  the  old  man  in  his  peevishness  was 
grieved  by  their  ingratitude  in  offering  a  bounty  on  his 
head.  At  any  rate,  we  are  told  that  he  grew  weary  of  his 
hoary  hairs  and  enfeebling  senectitude,  and  resolved  that 
the  ungrateful  masters  should  pay  the  bounty  and  take  the 
consequences  whether  of  pleasure  or  of  regret.  In  other 
words  he  resolved  to  send  them  his  head  and  make  it 
bring  its  price  in  gold! 

In  our  own  days  of  comparative  sympathies  and  sensi¬ 
bilities  a  resolution  like  this  could  scarcely  emanate  from 
any  person  other  than  a  madman;  and  our  first  judgment, 
shocked  at  the  bare  conception,  is  that  no  horror  so  ap¬ 
palling  could  have  been  devised  by  anything  saner  than 
some  idiocracy  of  an  errant  brain.  But  2,000  years  have 
softened  the  human  mind  which,  though  yet  cruel  and 
sometimes  even  savage,  is  so  comparatively  tender  that  it 
pronely  misjudges  the  motives  and  the  drastic  will  which 
impelled  some  acts  of  our  progenitors. 

Drimakos  resolved  to  shuffle  off  his  mortal  coil.  Call¬ 
ing  to  him  the  friend  whose  name  our  informants  have 
not  transmitted  to  us,  he  spoke  to  him  in  the  following 
characteristic  words: 

“Boy,  I  have  brought  thee  up  nearest  to  me,  ever  with 
the  emotions  of  confidence  and  love  more  than  that  felt 
for  all  others  of  mankind.  Thou  art  child  and  son  and 
all  that  to  me  is  dear.  I  have  lived  out  my  span.  I  have 
lived  long  enough;  but  thou  art  still  young  and  hast  blood 
and  hope  and  sprightliness,  and  there  is  much  before 
thee.  Thou  shalt  become  a  good  and  brave  man. 

“Son,  the  city  of  the  Chians  is  offering  to  him  that  bring- 
eth  them  my  head  a  sum  of  money  and  promising  him  his 
freedom.  Therefore  thy  duty  is  to  cut  off  my  head,  take 


176 


DRIMAKOS. 


it  to  them,  receive  thy  reward,  return  home  to  thy  father- 
land  and  be  happy.” 

The  innocent  youth  at  the  thought  of  such  an  ungrate¬ 
ful  and  sickening  atrocity,  refused  for  the  first  time  to 
obey  his  benefactor,  and  struggled  hard  to  change  the 
old  man’s  determination,  but  in  vain.  Having  resolved, 
he  was  inexorable.  When  the  youth  found  him  fixed  in 
his  horrible  resolution  and  knew  by  long  acquaintance 
with  him  that  it  was  unalterable,  he  allowed  himself  to  be 
persuaded. 

The  slave-king  laid  his  head  upon  the  block  and  the 
youth  cleft  it  with  the  axe  of  the  executioner ! 

Having  buried  the  body  of  his  friend  and  patron,  the 
youth  took  the  head  to  the  city,  received  its  price,  his  free¬ 
dom  and  an  amnesty  and  departed  for  his  home  with 
wealth  and  distinction. 

The  Chians  did  not  long  rejoice  over  their  boasted  cap¬ 
ture  of  the  head  of  the  land-pirate.  Soon  after  he  was 
dead  the  runaway  slaves  with  whom  the  rocks  and  forests 
of  that  rugged  country  was  infested,  being  no  longer  un¬ 
der  the  restraint  of  the  ever  vigilant  Drimakos,  returned 
to  their  wonted  habits  of  pillage  by  land  and  piracy  by 
sea.  The  Chians  wrere  poignantly  reminded  of  the  error 
they  had  committed  in  their  harsh  measures  against  the 
powerful  but  just  chieftain,  who,  for  many  years  had  held 
the  discontented  and  warlike  freebooters  under  control. 
The  fugitive  slaves  re-began  their  work  of  robbery  and 
devastation.  Readopting  their  former  habits  of  plunder 
based  on  revenge  as  well  as  want,  they  ceased  to  be  an  or¬ 
ganized  body  following  a  stipulated  arrangement  like  that 
which  so  long  had  existed  between  Drimakos  and  the 
Chian  people,  and  became  a  desperate  gang  of  land  pirates 
and  outlaws. 

The  treachery  of  the  Chians  in  securing  the  removal  of 
Drimakos  thus  recoiled  upon  themselves  in  shape  of  a 
calamity.  They  remembered  the  prophetic  words  of  the 
martyred  chieftain,  that  the  gods  had  espoused  the  cause 
of  the  poor  slaves  and  w  ere  angry  with  their  masters.  A 
feeling  remembrance,  kindling  a  high  degree  of  respect 
for  him  now  set  in,  and  both  combined  to  produce  a  ven¬ 
eration  which  caused  them  to  erect  a  tomb  or  mausoleum 
Over  his  grave,  which  the  Greeks  called  a  heroon%  and  he  be- 


A  MAUSOLEUM  TO  THE  CHIEF. 


177 


came  the  object  of  hero  worship.  This  was  no  less  a  struct¬ 
ure  than  a  temple  dedicated  to  Drimakos,  the  now  deified 
hero. 

Such  was  the  sublimity  of  the  subject  that  this  heroon 
or  temple  arose  so  splendid  and  enduring  that  its  ruins 17 
remain  to  this  day  and  have  been  the  object  of  study  by 
archaeologists  and  other  students  from  more  than  a  dozen 
points  of  view.18  The  superstitions  of  the  times  no  w  came 
in  play  in  the  flexible  imaginations  of  these  people.  They 
persuaded  themselves  that  they  often  saw  in  the  gloom  of 
night  the  ghost  of  Drimakos,  now  as  before  their  friend, 
as,  bony-fingered  and  spectral,  it  appeared  to  warn  the 
Chians  of  some  foul  plot  his  fellow  runaways  and  brigands 
were  concocting  against  their  lives  and  property.  And 
many  a  time  were  the  lurking  filibusters  thus  checkmated 
in  their  manoeuvres,  ambuscades  and  sallies,  and  many  a 
time  defeated  in  their  bloody  designs  by  the  wan  and 
stalking  ghost  of  Drimakos.  Curiously  enough  this  super¬ 
stition  was  mutual  between  bond  and  free;  for  the  brig¬ 
ands  themselves  worshipped  the  manes  of  Drimakos  as 
their  hero  also;  and  always  first  brought  to  his  mausoleum 
the  richest  trophies  of  their  marauding  expeditions  before 
dispersing  to  their  caverns  with  the  rest. 

So  weird  and  romantic  does  this  tale  of  the  wild  men  of 
ancient  Scio  sound  that  we  have  hesitated  before  allowing 
it  to  contribute  its  enriching  lessons  and  charms,  lest  it 
prove  unable  to  bear  the  criticism  of  our  learned  but 
skeptic  readers.  But  when  our  eye  at  last  caught  the 
smiling  assurances  of  its  trustworthiness  from  savants  like 
Dr.  Karl  Bticher,  and  other  learned  teachers  of  philology, 
and  from  their  pen  we  obtained  the  bracing  words  that  not 
the  slightest  doubt1*  exists  as  to  the  credibility  of  the  story, 
we  ventured  to  bring  it  forth  upon  its  merits  as  another 
instance  of  labor’s  hardships  and  struggles  for  existence. 

W  Consult  Stark  bei  Hermann,  S.  40, 16. 

u  See  Ross  Travels  in  the  islands ;  Inscription  de  Scio,  No.  72. . 

*•  Bticher  Aufstdnde  der  Unfrcien  Arbeiter,  S.  28.  “Mag  man  elnzelne  Zi'nie 
dioser  Geschichte  romanhaft  flnden,  es  bietet  sich  anch  nicht  der  '“isiete  Grand 
an  ihrer  Echtheit  zu  zweifeln,  und  selbst  wenn  die  klugen  chiischeu  Kanfiante 
sie  anr  Erklarung  des  Heroons  und  ale  Abschreckungsmittel  fur  lure  Sclaven  er 
f unden  hatten,  bliebe  sie  darum  weniger  ein  treues  Spiegelbiid  voihandenci 
Zost&nde.’’ 


CHAPTER  VUL 


VIRIATHUS. 

A  GREAT  REBELLION  IN  SPAIN. 


Th*  Roman  Slave  System  in  Spain — Tyranny  in  Lusitania — 
Massacre  of  the  People — Condition  before  the  Outbreak — 
First  Appearance  of  Yiriathus — A  Shepherd  on  his  Native 
Hills — A  Giant  in  Stature  and  Intellect — He  takes  Com¬ 
mand — Vetillius  Outwitted — Captured  and  Slain — Conflict 
in  Tartessus — Romans  again  Beaten — Battle  of  the  Hill  of 
Venus — Viriathus  Slaughters  another  army  and  Humiliates 
Rome — Segobria  Captured — Arrival  of  JEmilianus — He  is 
Out-generaled  and  at  last  Beaten  by  Viriathus — More  Bat¬ 
tles  and  Victories  for  the  Farmers — Arrival  of  Plautius 
with  Fresh  Roman  Soldiers — Viriathus  made  King — More 
Victories — Treason,  Conspiracy  and  Treachery  Lurking  in 
his  Camps — Murdered  by  his  own  Perfidious  Officers — 
Pomp  at  His  Funeral — Relentless  Vengeance  of  the  Romans 
— Crucifixion  and  worse  Slavery  than  before — The  Cause 
Lost. 


The  successful  issue  to  Rome,  of  the  third  Punic  war 
by  which  Carthage,  agreeably  to  the  inveterate  apothegm 
of  Cato:  “ delenda  est  Carthago the  land  of  the  terrible 
Hannibal  was  chopped  to  pieces  and  its  inhabitants  butch¬ 
ered  or  sold  into  slavery,  caused  an  enormous  amount  of 
suffering  to  the  human  race. 

Not  only  did  the  spirit  of  greed  cause  Roman  land  spec¬ 
ulators  to  press  the  enforcement  of  the  slave  laws  which 
seized  prisoners  and  consigned  them  to  the  most  cruel 
wholesale  bondage  in  Asia-Minor,  Italy  and  Sicily,  but  it 
extended  this  mischief  also  into  sunny  Spain. 


ENFORCED  BONDAGE  AND  REBELLION.  179 


One  of  the  main  causes  of  the  rebellion  of  inner  emo¬ 
tions  of  the  celebrated  Tiberius  Gracchus  against  Home, 
goading  him  to  become  the  champion  of  a  reform  in  favor 
of  the  poor,  was  the  wretchedly  enslaved  condition  of  the 
working  people  in  all  countries  under  Roman  domination. 
Their  terrible  condition  in  Etruria  was  no  worse  than  in 
Numantia  in  Spain.  He  had  seen  the  indescribable  suffer¬ 
ing  at  Carthage,  when  nearly  the  entire  population  were 
either  put  to  the  sword  or  sold  in  slavery.  Spain  was  on 
the  verge  of  rebellion  everywhere.  Roman  conquest  had 
but  a  few  years  before,  stricken  Epirus  a  fruitful  land 
eastward  from  Italy.  Paulus  iEmilius  tore  from  the  farm¬ 
ers  of  this  region  upwards  of  £2,000,000  of  their  savings 
in  gold,  and  after  the  battle  of  Pydna,  seized  no  less  than 
150,000  people  by  order  of  the  Roman  senate.  These 
people,  nearly  all  farmers  and  other  workers,  were  dragged 
from  their  homes  and  sold  for  slaves.  Seventy  cities  were 
sacked  and  destroyed. 

Towns,  villages,  cities  on  every  side,  as  well  as  farms 
and  small  industries,  with  their  unions  and  communes, 
were  reduced  to  a  desolate  waste,  and  the  people,  who 
were  still  alive,  whether  suffering  under  the  lash  of  mas¬ 
ters  in  a  foreign  land,  or  gasping  under  tyranny  at  home, 
were  burning  with  bitterness,  revengefulness,  hatred  and 
other  lurking  passions,  and  sinking  into  degeneracy,  reck¬ 
lessness  and  poverty.1 

Such  was  also  the  miserable  status  of  affairs  in  Spain 
in  the  year  B.  C.  149,  when  our  story  of  Viriathus  begins. 
Old  Lusitania  before  the  Roman  conquests,  was  a  popu¬ 
lous  and  enterprising  country.  There  were  associations, 
of  the  Lusitanian  laboring  people,  which  under  some  favor¬ 
able  rules  had  existed  so  long  that  they  had  become  rich. 
Traces  of  their  enterprise  are  still  to  be  seen  in  form  of 
temples,  bridges  and  roads.  It  appears  to  have  been  in 
their  days  of  highest  glory  that  Rome,  with  a  blackening 
curse  of  human  slavery,  struck  this  beautiful,  sunny  clime 
and  its  contented,  happy  and  prosperous  people. 

Our  story  begins  with  a  perfidious  piece  of  treachery  of 
oim  Servius  Sulpicius  Galba,  who  commanded  the  Roman 
army  of  invasion  in  Spain.  lake  Yerres  in  Sicily,  Galba 

lutaich,  Paulus  s&milius;  Livy,  XL.  25-28 ;  Wallace,  Numbers  of  Mankind. 


180 


VIRIATHUS. 


seemed  to  have  no  moral  respect  for  humanity.  He 

worked  his  plans  to  secure  the  confidence  of  these  people 
and  when  the  opportunity  arrived,  perfidiously  murdered 
them  in  great  numbers,  seized  and  dragged  others  into 
slavery  and  robbed  their  country  of  its  gold  with  which 
he  afterwards,  in  spite  of  old  Cato’s  efforts  to  have  him 
punished,  bought  himself  free  from  the  sentence  of  the 
law  at  Rome.  Soon  after  these  outrages  of  Galba,  Rome 
withdrew  many  of  the  soldiers  from  Spain  and  the  peo¬ 
ple  rallied  with  greater  determination  than  ever,  to  re¬ 
trieve  their  losses.  They  were  mostly  farmers  and  me¬ 
chanics,  and  men  of  strong,  well  established  principles. 

Among  those  who  had  the  fortune  to  escape  from  the 
last  massacre  of  Galba  was  a  young  man  named  Viriathus. 
He  is  represented  by  Diodorus  as  almost  a  giant  in  stat¬ 
ure  2  and  a  person  born  to  command,  He  was  endowed 
by  nature  with  the  rare  faculties  of  honor  and  truthful¬ 
ness,  while  at  the  same  time  leading  the  life  of  a  hunter,  a 
shepherd  and  finally  of  a  border  warrior  in  defense  of 
himself  and  his  kindred.  An  excellent  description  of 
Viriathus  is  left  us  by  Diodorus  in  a  short  fragment  of 
his  histories  which  have  been  fortunately  preserved.  This 
fragment,  while  it  represents  him  to  have  been  a  robber, 
extols  at  the  same  breath  his  honor  for  distributing  the 
plunder  among  his  men,*  Livy  speaks  of  him  as  a  man  of 
warlike  qualifications,  having  had  experience  as  a  moun¬ 
taineer.4 

The  charge  against  him,  of  being  a  lawless  bandit  is  no 
longer  maintained  by  authors,  since  the  the  circumstances 
under  which  he  careered,  show  of  themselves,  that  he  did 

*  Diodorus,  Bibliotheca  Historica.Ub.  XXXIII.  Eclog.  V.  of  fragmenta*,  “  Ou- 

piardov  /cvpijcravres,  p.eyaAa  'Pco/aalot/?  efikaxf/av-  J)V  pev  oZv  ovro s  to>v  n apa  top 
ooxeavov  oikovvtcjv  Aver  iraviov,  iroLpaivtov  e/c  naiB'os,  opeiio  f3 up  xarecnj  (rvvrjih)s, 
avvepyov  /cal  rr\v  tou  erw/xaro s  <t>v<rw  /cal  yap  pcop. 77,  /cal  ra^ei,  ijal  rrj  tmv  AoiJUt>*< 

pepebv  ev/ctvrjaia,  7toAv  Strjvey/ce  ribv  IjSjjpa/v.  truveiihae  Be  avrov  Tpocf>jj  pev  okiyi), 
yvpvacriois  Be  ttoAAois  xpi /cal  vnvto  pexpi-  povov  rod  avay/catov.  /ca#bAou  Be 
<riBrjpo<$>opu>v  ervve^w?,  /cal  Ararat?  eis  dycopa?  Kad-urrapevos,  weptjSoijro?  eyevero  napa 
roi;  7rA>)i9ecrt,  /cal  rjyepuiv  aurol?  rjpe&rp  /cal  ra^w  <rvam ipa  irepl  eaurov  AjjaTwv  fi&poicre 
/cal  npoxoTTTitiv  ev  rols  JroAepois,  ov  povov  id-avpaorui&i)  Bi  aA/crjp,  aAAd  /cai  arparif 
yelv  e8o£e  Biaffrepovrias.” 

8  Idem,  Excerpt  de  Virt.  et  Vlt.  pag.  591:  "'On  Oviptanfo?  o  kjjarapxot  b 
Avenravos  xal  Sl/cato?  yv  ev  rais  SiavopaZs  ru>v  kafyvpwv,  /cal  /car’  a£ia.v  npibv  row « 
ai'Spayadjjcrai'Ta?  e£aipero is  5wpoi?,  er  1  Be  ovSev  ajrAa/s  e/e  rS>v  kolvuiv  vo<r<f>i£bpevof, 
Sto  /cal  <rvvej Satve  rob?  Avcriravov^  irpo&vporara  <ruyKivSvvevetv  avrip,  rt pcovrai 
olovtl  riva  koivov  evepyerrjv  /cal  acor/jpa*’' 

4  Livy,  Epitom,  of  Historiarum,  Libri,  LIT.  "Viriathus  in  Hiepania  primuzn 
ex  pastore  venator,  ex  venatore  latro,  mox  justl  quoque  exercitua  dux  factaa, 
totam  Lusitaniam  occupavit.” 


MASSACRES  OF  GALBA. 


181 


nothing  which  any  patriot  would  not  be  bound  to  do  in 
defense  of  home,  family  and  friends.  What  the  ancient 
authors  seem  to  be  prejudiced  against  him  for,  is  the  fact 
that,  like  Athenion  and  Spartacus,  he  was  poor  and  that 
he  belonged  to  the  lowly  and  strictly  laboring  class.  But 
even  with  the  excusable  charge  against  him  that  he  was 
a  robber,  we  find  very  few  who  do  not  speak  highly  of  him 
as  a  great  leader  and  a  man  of  uncommon  justice. 

The  only  thing  Galba  and  Lucullus  seem  to  have  been 
able  to  think  of,  when  sent  from  Rome  into  Spain,  was  to 
plunder  at  an  unlimited  cost  of  suffering  and  blood.  Cheat¬ 
ing,  deceiving,  working  deeds  of  treachery  against  the 
people  and  amassing  gold  was  their  single  object;  and  to 
get  the  gold  from  Spain  and  carry  it  as  their  own  per¬ 
sonal  property  to  Rome,  was  their  bent  and  determina¬ 
tion.* 

Among  the  few  Lusitanians  who  escaped  from  the  last 
massacre  of  Galba, was  Viriathus.  He  adroitly  forewarned 
himself  and  a  few  friends,  of  a  treacherous  plot,  just  at 
the  moment  of  its  consummation  and  with  difficulty  extri¬ 
cated  himself,  although  great  numbers  of  innocent  people 
were  murdered  or  enslaved.  His  opportunity  was  now 
at  hand,  and  he  informed  the  shattered  remnant  of  the 
band,  of  which  it  appears  he  was  at  the  time,  little  above 
the  rank  and  file,  that  if  they  would  entrust  the  future 
command  of  their  forces  to  him,  he  would  lead  them  out 
in  safety.  In  a  speech  he  told  them  that  they  were  too 
confiding;  that  the  Romans  were  utterly  devoid  of  all  in¬ 
stincts  of  truthfulness  or  honor,  and  that  the  only  tactics 
in  future  to  be  pursued  must  be  based  upon  the  idea  of 
treating  them  as  enemies ;  that  whatever  the  hypocritical 
pretence  of  either  the  Roman  senate,  or  its  inhuman  emis¬ 
saries  that  Spain  was  in  need  of  protection,  the  truth  at 
the  bottom  was,  that  Rome  wanted  the  whole  of  this  fair 
and  fruitful  land,  its  productive  mines,  its  waving  grain 
fields,  its  fisheries,  timber  forests  and  gems,  for  her  great 

5  Appian,  Iberia,  60;  Livy,  Epitome .  XLIX.  remarks  that  Cato  was  stern 
enough  to  have  Galba  punished  but  the  trial  came  to  naught;  the  infamous 
traitor  had  too  much  gold  at  command:  “QuumL.  Scribonius  tribunus  plebis 
rogationcm  promuigasset,  ut  Lusitani,  qui,  in  fldem  populi  Romani  dediti,  a  er. 
Galba  in  Galliam  venissent,  in  libertatem  restitueremur,  M.  Cato  acerrim  ?  sua- 
sit.  Exstat  oratio  in  Annalibus  eius  inclusa.  Q.  Fulvius  Nobilior,  et  s  lepe  ab 
eo  in  sonata  laceraius  respondit  pro  Galba.  Ipse  quoqup  Galba,  qnum  se  (iMtii- 
nnri  videi  it .  complexns  duos  filios  praetextatos,  et  Sulpicii  Galli  filmm,  cuius 
tutor  i  -at.  .;s  m>er:ibi!iter  pro  se  locutus  est,  ut  r'ga'io  antiqunr  •tur  ” 


182 


VIRIATHUS. 


lords;  and  she  only  wanted  these  inestimable  resources 
worked  for  such  arrogant  darlings  of  her  aristocracy,  not 
by  free  labor  but  by  that  of  slaves,  subjugated  through 
plots  and  systematized  perfidy.  Give  me,  said  Viriathus, 
the  unlimited  command  of  your  brave  warriors  and  I  will 
rid  the  land  of  our  fathers  of  these  mortal  foes. 

The  speech  won  the  distinguished  sympathy  of  the 
governors.  The  tall  mountaineer  received  the  full  com¬ 
mand  of  the  army;  and  now  begins  one  of  the  most  re¬ 
markable  series  of  successes,  wrought  amid  difficulties, 
cruelties  and  transient  triumphs,  to  be  found  in  the  his¬ 
tory  of  Rome.  These  extraordinary  contests  lasted,  ac¬ 
cording  to  various  authors  from  eight  to  twenty  years.® 

After  the  departure  to  Rome  of  Galba  and  Lucullus, 
with  their  gold,  a  praetor  or  governor,  named  Gaius  Vet- 
ilius  was  entrusted  by  the  Romans,  with  the  care  of  the 
Spanish  possessions;  and  Viriathus  thus  left  the  flocks 
under  his  care  in  the  mountains  and  valleys  of  his  home 
to  take  permanent  charge  of  the  broken  and  disheartened 
army  which  had  regained  some  spirit,  however,  on  account 
of  the  evacuation  of  their  territory  by  Galba,  and  began 
marching  down  into  the  fertile  valleys  of  Turdetania. 

Vetilius  met  them  promptly,  and  before  the  new  com¬ 
mander  could  organize  his  troops,  or  perhaps  before  he 
really  got  command,  gained  a  victory,  driving  them  back 
and  forced  them  to  agree  to,  and  almost  conclude  an  un¬ 
conditional  surrender.  This  was  perhaps  the  auspicious 


«  We  here  give  the  several  authorities  for  the  duration  of  these  wars,  from 

the  massacres  of  Galba  to  the  assassination  of  Viriathus  consecutively  as  follows: 

Appian,  Historia  Bomoma,  Iberia,  63,  put  it  at  about  8  years:  "'O  es  o/crw 
irq  Tw/xat'ots  «jroAep.«i*  <cai  /xoi  SontZ  r'ov  Ovpiardov  irdAeuov,  a<f)68pa.  re  evo^A rjcrarra 
‘Pa>p.aiois  teal  Svaepyorarov  auTOi?  y«vop.evov ,  <rvvayayeiy ,  aya.dep.cyoy  ci  n  rod  avrov 
Xpovov  nepl  'ljir)piay  aAAo  iyi yvero.’’ 

Livy,  Historiarum,  Liber,  LII.  Epitom.  “C.  Vetilium  praetorem,  fuso  eius 
exercitu,  cepit:  post  quem  C.  Plautins  praetor  nihilo  felicius  rem  gessit:  tan- 
tumque  terroris  is  hostis  intulit,  ut  adversus  eum  consulari  opus  esset  et  duee, 
et  exercitu.”  This  mention  is  found  by  a  careful  study  of  the  different  com¬ 
mands,  to  make  the  duration  to  have  been  about  14  years. 

Justin,  XLIV.  2,  says  10  years;  while  Diordorus  makes  it  to  appear  about 
11  years,  and  Orosius,  Histories  Adversus  Paganos,  V,  4,  about  8  to  10  years. 

Eutrope,  Breviarium  Rerum  Romanorum.  IV.  16,  evidently  takes  his  state¬ 
ment  from  Livy ;  for  aside  from  putting  the  wars  of  Virathus  at  14  years,  he 
uses  almost  the  same  language  in  describing  the  man  ;  “Quo  metu  Viriathus  a 
suis  interfectus  est,  cum  quatuordecim  annis  Ilispanlas  adversum  Romanos  mo- 
visset.  Pastor  primo  fuit,  mox  latronum  dux,  postreino  tantos  ad  bellum  popu- 
los  concitavit,  ut  assertor  contra  Romanos  Hispaniae  putaretur.” 

Vallejus  Paterculus,  Breviarium  Histories  Romance ,  lib.  II.  cap.  90  declares 
the  duration  of  the  wars  with  Viriathus  to  have  been  20  years  and  undoubtedly 
Mommsen  .u  putting  it  at  8  with  Appian,  is  entirely  wrong. 


A  TRIUMPHANT  RETREAT. 


183 


* 


moment  at  winch.  Viriathus  first  showed  himself  and  made 
his  speech,  as  we  have  just  recounted. 

This  hardy  Spaniard,  on  getting  the  reins  firmly  into 
his  hands,  introduced  a  method  of  tactics  little  understood 
or  anticipated  by  the  Romans.  He  made  an  unexpected 
revolt  against  the  stipulations  of  capitulation  then  being 
drawn  up,  accompanying  the  same  with  a  dash  of  his 
troops,  and  by  a  series  of  twists  and  turns  in  which  the 
swiftest  of  the  Spanish  cavalry  were  brought  into  play, 
succeeded  in  extricating  the  little  army  so  entirely  from 
the  grasp  of  Vetilius  that  he  effected  a  retreat  into  a  rocky 
woodland,  and  there  safely  spent  the  night  in  rest  and 
needed  refreshment,  and  the  following  day  in  religious 
purifications  according  to  the  Spanish  creed.7  The  flight, 
according  to  Appian,  and  others,  was  accomplished  by 
dividing  the  army  into  several  parts,  each  under  the  com¬ 
mand  of  a  trusted  leader,  with  orders  to  reunite  at  a  given 
point,  and  with  1,000  horses  under  his  own  command  he 
covered  their  retreat,  first  galloping  to  the  rescue  of  one 
and  then  the  other.  .In  this  manner  they  all  reached  Tri- 
bola  in  safety,  after  holding  their  pursuers  in  check  for 
two  days  by  means  of  various  expedients  of  consummate 
ingenuity  in  which  he  took  advantage  of  the  wild  and 
rugged  shape  of  the  land.® 

All  this  time  he  was  marching  southward  toward  the 
strait  of  Gades,  to  the  ancient  Carteia.  Vetilius  could  illy 
brook  the  escape  of  his  game  which  so  short  a  time  be¬ 
fore  he  believed  to  be  in  his  hand.  He  made  a  desperate 
effort  to  frustrate  the  splendid  retreat  of  the  Spanish  army, 
but  Viriathus  decoyed  him  into  an  ambush  at  the  foot  of 
the  Hill  of  Venus  where  a  celebrated  battle  was  fought, 
which  Appian  and  others  graphically  describe.* 

It  was  a  deep  gorge,  thick-set  with  briars,  rocks,  forest 
trees  and  other  obstructions,  which  puzzled  the  best  army 

1  Appian,  Historia  Romana,  Hispania ,  62 :  Frontin,  Strategematon,  lib.  Ill,  xi. 
g  4 :  ‘‘Viriathus,  cum  triduiiter  diseedens confecisset,  idem  illud  nno  die  remen- 
«us  securos  Segobrigenses  et  sacnficio  cum  maxime  occupatos  oppressit/’ 

8  Appian,  62,  20-25,  of  Mendelsohn:  “  '12?  S’  einaatv  a<r</> aAw?  e\etv  tjj?  <f>vyr)% 

tot)?  CTcpov?,  Tore  vvktos  op/xijaa?  Si’  oSuv  arpi|3u)v  /cov^orarots  airdSpapev  it 

Tpt /3oAav,  *Pta>/aata>»  avrvv  StuKtiv  6 pottos  ou  Svvapiviav  Sia  re  /3 apo?  ottAwi'  /cai 
airtipiav  oStov  <al  lirirotv  avoixotorgra.’’ 

9  Consult  also  Dion  Cassius,  Histories,  LXXVIII.  p.  33,  Wess. ;  Frontin, 
Strategematon,  lib.  III.  cap.  10,  refers  to  this  as  one  of  the  great  strokes  of  strate- 
gem:  “Viriathus  disposito  per  occulta  milite  paucos  misit,  qui  abigerent  pecora 
Segobrigensium :  ad  quae  illi  vindicanda  cum  frequentes  procurrissent  simulan- 
tesque  fugam  praedatores  persequerentur,  deducti  in  insidias  caesique  sunt." 


184 


VIRIATHUS. 


unaccustomed  to  mountain  life  but  which  least  tormented 
a  man  like  Yiriathus,  whose  life  had  been  that  of  a  hunter 
and  shepherd  among  glens  and  precipices.10  It  was  about 
the  time  when  Viriathus,  after  his  three  days  retreat,  was 
entering  the  town  of  Tribola,  that  Yetilius  and  his  men 
made  a  desperate  effort  to  sei2e  him.  Some  of  the  Span¬ 
ish  detachments  were  out  reconnoitring  when  they  were 
set  upon  by  a  heavy  body  of  Romans  in  the  ledge,  and 
after  many  hours  of  severe  fighting  the  Romans  lost  their 
general  and  gave  way  with  a  loss  in  killed  of  about  5,000 
soldiers — a  half  of  their  entire  force.  It  was  soon  after¬ 
wards  discovered  that  Vetilius  had  met  one  of  the  hardy 
mountaineers,  and  in  a  hand  to  hand  encounter  had  been 
taken  prisoner  by  him.11  Most  writers  agree  that  the 
Roman  general  was  mortally  wounded  in  this  encounter. 
It  was  a  great  and  bloody  victory. 

Immediately  after  the  triumph  of  Yiriathus  at  the  Hill 
of  Yenus,  an  immense  number  of  slaves  and  free  tramps 
whose  condition  was  worse  than  that  of  slaves,  came  into 
the  camp  from  all  quarters,  to  offer  themselves  as  soldiers; 
and  although  we  do  not  find  much  in  the  fragments  of 
history  left  us  on  this  rebellion,  yet  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  a  very  large  army  was  called  into  being;  and  this  was 
probably  the  prime  secret  of  the  continued  train  of  suc¬ 
cesses  attending  the  career  of  the  insurgents. 

There  was  another  army  in  Spain,  subject  to  Rome,  con¬ 
sisting  of  Spanish  militia  and  mercenaries,  or  perhaps 
freedmen  who  had  been  impressed  into  the  Roman  ser¬ 
vice.  These,  6,000  strong,  on  the  arrival  of  the  news  of 
the  disaster  to  Vetilius,  struck  out  in  a  rapid  march  from 
their  quarters  on  the  river  Ebro. 

The  eye  of  Viriathus  was  however  on  the  lookout  for 
them.  He  marched  a  large  force  to  waylay,  and  prevent 
them  from  joining  the  enemy  who  had  by  this  time  so 
far  recovered  as  to  show  an  army  of  16,000  men,  now 
marching  toward  Gades  the  old  Tartesssus.  He  met  them 
at  some  convenient  place  and  in  a  second  battle  destroyed 
them  so  completely  that  nothing  was  left  of  the  force 

io  Diodorus,  Bibliotheca  Historica ,  XXXIII,  Eclog.  V.  "  'S.wti&tat  Si  ainbv 
rao<f>jj  p.iv  oAi-yjj,  yvpvaaiOLt  Si  troAAots  icai  virv<p  povov  ava.yna.LOV  «ca#oAow 

fi*  o’c£i)po(/>opd>('  avve^ojif  tea i  tfrjpi'ois  /cat  Ararat?  <t?  ayuivat  Kadiardpcvot,  nepL^oif 
rot  iyevero  napa  rots  JrAjjtfcat,  Ha i  riyepiov  avrolt  tcai  t a\i>  avari/pa  ntpi 

iavrov  yj/ariov  yd potcre 

u  Appian,  Historia  Romana,  idem,  68. 


BAT  LE  OF  THE  HILL  OF  VENUS .  186 


worthy  of  being  henceforth  considered  an  auxiliary  to  the 
Romans. 

All  these  manoeuvres,  victories,  and  vicissitudes  occu¬ 
pied  the  year ;  and  by  the  time  the  Romans  were  snugly 
fortifying  themselves  in  Tartessus,  news  of  the  defeat 
of  the  armies  and  death  of  the  governor  arrived  at  Rome. 
Gaius  Plautius  was  dispatched  to  the  scene  with  a  large 
reinforcement  of  13,000  men,  consisting  of  10,000  foot 
and  3,000  horse. 

But  in  the  meantime,  Yiriathus  was  realizing  his  high¬ 
est  glory  socially  and  politically,  among  his  own  people. 
He  redeemed  from  its  bondage,  and  reoccupied,  the  whole 
province  of  Karpetania;  and  large  as  the  Roman  army  was, 
they  dared  not  make  an  attempt  against  him.  He  was 
made  a  king  and  given  powers  and  position  which  be¬ 
came  princely  but  not  magnificent;  for  he  refused  to  ac¬ 
cept  anything  but  his  wonted  frugal  fare.  Ho  only  claimed 
to  be  an  honest  shepherd  and  workingman.  They  mar¬ 
ried  him  to  a  lady  of  high  estate  and  wealth  but  all  he 
would  accept  was  herself,  leaving  to  those  who  were  flat¬ 
tered  by  gew-gaws,  the  shallow  pleasures  of  jewels  and 
gold.  His  only  ambition  was  to  divert  his  natural  gifts 
from  a  profession  of  intrinsic  value  in  the  field  of  labor, 
to  that  of  the  military  camp,  until  he  should  redeem  his 
people  from  slavery  and  danger  into  which  they  had  been 
forced  by#the  Roman  conquests.  He  was  witty  and  bright, 
and  he  surpassed  his  fellows  in  physical  stature.  An  in¬ 
defatigable  worker,  he  always  slept  in  full  armor  and 
fought  in  the  front  ranks ;  and  even  at  the  moment  of 
highest  triumph  ever  refused  to  indulge  in  intemperance 
of  any  kind.13 

After  the  arrival  of  Plautius,  as  praetor  or  governor  from 
Rome,  with  the  large  force  of  13,000  men,  as  we  have 
mentioned,  and  time  had  been  taken  to  reorganize  the 
broken  remnants  stated  by  Appian  to  number  16,000  men, 
an  expedition  was  arranged  to  bring  the  daring  revoiter  to 
punishment.  But  in  the  first  dash,  Yiriathus  attacked  his 
detachment  of  4,000  and  almost  exterminated  them.  In  a 
succession  of  engagements  and  strategems  Plautius  was  so 

l.XWTU.  So  also.  Diodorus,  BibHlheca  Romana 
i  -'i  excellent  points  of  character  of  the  great  Lu- 
i.u.  ^0  ancient  authors;  consult  also  Bekker, 


186 


V1HI A  THUS. 


completely  hacked  to  pieces  that  he  retired  in  midsummer 
into  winter  quarters,  at  a  safe  distance  from  the  now  dreaded 
Spaniard.  This  disaster  to  the  Roman  praetor  was  so  com¬ 
plete  that  he  never  recovered  from  it,  and  was  afterwards 
driven  into  exile  and  disgrace. 

The  next  general  sent  out  from  Rome  against  Viriathus 
was  the  son  of  Paulus  iEmilius,  who  a  few  years  before  had 
dragged  into  slavery  150,000  people,  after  the  battle  of 
Pydna,  in  Epirus.  His  full  name  was  Quintus  Fabius  Max¬ 
imus  iEmilianus.  He  brought  with  him  an  army  of  15,000 
foot  soldiers  and  a  cavalry  force  of  2,000,  which  added  to 
those  already  in  Spain  but  now  in  a  demoralized  condition 
must  have  aggregated  a  force  of  little  less  than  50,000. 11 
Fabius  Maximus  pitched  his  camp  at  Orsona,  not  far  from 
where  the  city  of  Seville  now  stands,  and  remained  there 
until  the  next  year,  closely  watched  by  Viriathus. 

This  Roman  governor  seems  to  have  left  the  command  to  a 
person  less  capable  than  himself  whose  name  was  Quinctius; 
for  the  Spaniard  lured  him  into  some  conflict  which  seems 
to  have  been  deadly.  Appian  is  not  clear  as  to  what  it 
was,  but  speaks  of  the  shrewd  manoeuvres  of  Viriathus,  and 
of  a  battle,  the  results  of  which  were  the  loss  of  many,  by 
hard  fighting.  The  inference  is,  that  both  iEmilianus  and 
Quinctius  were  defeated  and  destroyed  ;  for  we  next  hear 
of  the  arrival  from  Rome,  of  another  general,  Quintus  Ser- 
vilianus,  a  near  relative  of  the  same  iEmilius  Paulus. 

This  general  brought  with  him  two  whole  legions  and  ten 
elephants  from  Utica,  a  town  northward  from  Carthage  in 
Africa.  This  new  force,  in  addition  to  the  elephants,  con¬ 
sisted  of  18,000  foot  and  1,600  horse.14  Servilianus  had  lit¬ 
tle  difficulty  in  marching  with  this  army  through  several  of 
the  districts  which  had  been  reconquered  by  Viriathus.  He 
took  many  of  the  leaders  of  the  rebellion,  and  had  at  one 
time  as  many  as  500  killed  for  taking  part  in  the  revolt. 
Great  numbers  were  sold  into  slavery.  Those  caught,  who 
were  found  to  have  turned  against  the  Romans,  were 
cruelly  treated  by  having  their  hands  cut  off. 

18  Appian,  Historta  Romana,  Iberia,  65:  “Kal  napa  t£>v  <rvfj.fxd\aiv  arparop 
aAAov  ainjcras,  rj/cey  es  'O pau)va  tj)s  ’I/Jrjpias  a vnnavras  ex<av  ne^ovt  /xvpcovs  ica'i 
7rt»>TaKicrxiA.tovs  Kai  inneas  es  Sia^iXtou?.” 

H  Appian,  Historia  Romana,  idem,  67  :  ,,r  Anavras  c’s  fivpiovs  kiI  oxraKicryiAi- 
ous  tti  Vivs  Kal  inneas  efaxocnous  eni  \iAtois-  enurreiKas  Se  Kal  MiKi'1^17  ru>  Nop.a8tui> 
$acnAi  Tc/v'-ai  oi  ra^icrra  cAc^at'Tas,  ’Itukkij*'  rjnetytTO,  r'r |i>  oTpaTiat’  ayon-  Kara 

M«POS.  ' 


ASSASSINATED  BY  HIS  OWN  MEN, \  187 


At  length  Viriathus,  who  was  watching  his  opportunity, 
caught  the  old  Roman  at  the  siege  of  the  town  of  Erisane, 
and  after  ?  severe  contest  defeated  him.  Driven  to  a  rocky 
ledge  in  an  angle  from  which  it  was  impossible  to  escape,  the 
victorious  Spaniards  had  him  completely  in  their  power. 

Here,  at  the  zenith  of  a  long  list  of  brilliant  successes, 
virtually  closes  the  glory  of  Viriathus.  He  was  so  foolish 
as  to  let  his  sympathies  get  the  better  of  his  judgment. 

So  complete  was  this  victory  over  Servilianus  that  he  was 
glad  to  treat  on  any  terms;  and  the  surprising  sequel  is,  that 
the  terms  offered  by  Viriathus  and  accepted  at  Rome  were 
so  mild.  The  Spaniard  was  to  be  acknowledged  king  over 
his  native  country  of  Lusitania,  and  henceforward  to  be  re¬ 
garded  as  a  brother  or  ally  to  the  Romans! 

Of  course  this  furnished  Rome  another  period  of  time  to 
recuperate  and  concoct  new  schemes  of  treachery.  This 
she  did,  by  sending  the  perfidious  Csepio  to  take  the  place 
of  Servilianus,  aud  he  was  not  long  in  bribing  the  friends 
of  Viriathus  to  turn  against  their  long  trusted  master  and 
murder  him  in  his  sleep. 

An  enormous,  far-sounding  wake  accompanied  by  gladia¬ 
torial  orgies  of  shocking  ferocity,  was  held  over  his  remains. 
The  date  of  this  great  revolt  in  Spain  is  fixed  at  149  years 
before  Christ.  This  disgraceful  triumph  of  Csepio  was  fol¬ 
lowed  by  the  enslavement  of  innumerable  peasants,  traders 
and  working  people,  and  the  end  was  worse  than  the  be¬ 
ginning. 

If  we  are  to  believe  Vellejus  Paterculus,  the  great  wars 
of  Viriathus  against  the  Roman  slave  trade — for  it  was 
nothing  les§ — lasted  about  20  years ;  and  taking  all  things 
into  consideration,  it  could  not  have  been  a  shorter  time, 
although  belittled  by  the  historians.  Mommsen  is  anx¬ 
ious  to  make  it  appear  but  8  years,  agreeing  with  Appian. 
In  the  account  of  Spartacus,  written  by  Vellejus,  we  found 
this  historian’s  statement  as  to  the  great  numbers  of  that 
general’s  men,  to  perfectly  agree  with  the  circumstances 
in  the  case,  although  it  throws  a  flood  of  light,  clearing  up 
and  making  perfectly  reasonable,  the  details  of  that  great 
war ;  and  showing  it  to  have  been  one  of  the  most  pro¬ 
digious  conflicts  ever  known.  Yet  great  efforts  seem  to 
have  been  made  to  suppress  the  history  of  Spartacus,  and 
modern  authors  appear  surprisingly  anxious  to  perpet¬ 
uate  the  suppression  of  it. 


18S 


VIRIA  THUS, 


tr 

The  whole  affair  of  Viriathus  was  caused  by  a  treacher¬ 
ous,  wholesale  effort  on  the  part  of  the  Roman  gens,  or 
lords,  to  reduce  Spain  to  slavery,  to  choke  her  liberty-lov¬ 
ing  people  down  to  chains,  unpaid,  enforced  labor,  turn 
her  fruitful  lands  into  slave-worked  plantations  and  stock- 
farms,  latifundici ,  as  in  Sicily,  and  thus  build  up  an  arro¬ 
gant  landed  aristocracy.  The  immense  and  long-contin¬ 
ued  resistance  of  this  humble  workingman  held  that  pow¬ 
erful  race  of  optimates  in  check ;  and  it  proved  one  of 
the  principal  reasons  of  their  having  never  succeeded  in 
brutalizing  the  Spaniards  as  they  did  the  less  fortunate 
people  of  Sicily. 

The  great  gladiatorial  wake  given  in  the  honor  of  the 
murdered  Viriathus  adds  no  glory  to  his  name  that  can 
descend  to  an  age  of  sympathy,  such  as  would  now  em¬ 
brace  his  cause ;  nor  could  such  a  scene  have  been  sanc¬ 
tioned,  even  at  that  comparatively  feelingless  era,  by  the 
hero  himself,  could  his  noble  spirit  have  looked  clown 
upon  it.  It  was  simply  an  expression  of  contemptible 
hypocrisy  that  lay  concealed  in  Roman  politicians  of  that 
day.  They  often  took  this  hideous  method  of  diverting 
the  human  mind  from  plans  of  salvation  which  had  been 
adopted  by  the  murdered  heroes. 

We  have  no  adequately  extended  accounts  of  this  spe¬ 
cial  scene,  but  know  those  horrors  to  have  been  popular 
among  Romans  at  that  time ;  and  we  are  safe  in  taking, 
as  a  basis  of  description,  the  steel  engraving  of  such  a 
gladiatorial  event  drawn  by  Heck  for  the  German  Ency¬ 
clopedia.15 

Circling  round  on  the  raised  seats  of  an  nmpliiiheatre, 
appears  the  vast,  applauding  multitude,  as  is  still  seen  in 
the  bull-rings  of  Spain.  To  the  extreme  right  is  an  Afri¬ 
can  horned-horse  (gnu),  in  a  spasmodic  plunge  to  un¬ 
seat  his  athletic  rider,  a  man  who  is  being  dragged  to  the 
ground  by  a  tiger,  its  teeth  fastened  in  the  wretch’s  back. 

Away  back  amid  the  dust  and  smoke  of  the  conflict  are 
discerned  forms  of  animals  and  men  swirling  in  the  vor¬ 
tex  of  rage,  fear  and  death.  A  leopard  has  killed  a  naked 
man  and  floored  another;  and  farther  on,  a  hippopotamus 
is  crashing  through  an  indistinguishable  heap  of  womeu, 

is  Bxhltr  Atlas  zum  Konversations-Lexikon.  IIL  A.  2,  'Intel  15,  Fie.  lj 
Leipze  1849-1851. 


Til  hi  G  LABIA  10  RIAL  SA  Gill  LICE. 


18b 


men,  dogs,  panthers,  dead  or  dying,  some  lighting  to  the 
last.  Closer  by,  a  nude  Goliath,  his  arrows  now  useless, 
is  wrenching  the  jaws  of  some  wild  beast  with  his  sinewy 
hands  while  his  other  victim,  a  wild,  ox-like  monster  twice 
his  size,  lies  underneath  the  struggling  fighters  in  the 
final  agony. 

A  little  to  the  left  and  fairly  out  in  the  arena,  is  seen 
a  ferocious  lion  rearing  high  his  expressive  face  to  the 
beholder — a  face  beaming  with  daemoniacal  intelligence, 
as  if  mingling  a  malignant  laugh  with  rage — holding  his 
full  main  erect  and  one  huge  paw  raised  to  strike  a  Ben¬ 
gal  tiger  whose  wreaking  teeth  and  lips  are  thereby,  and 
with  apparent  reluctance,  forced  from  sating  hunger  on 
the  quivering  flesh  of  a  beautiful,  half-naked  woman,  prone 
and  dying  in  the  awful  qualms  of  pain  and  terror. 

Above  her,  half  dead  with  horror,  her  tiny  bare  arms 
extended  toward  the  dying  friend,  her  sweet  face  fraught 
with  agonies  of  despairing  love  and  suppliance  and  fright, 
but  with  not  the  slightest  signs  of  resistance — true  to  that 
pleading  womanhood  that  has  ever  been  the  controlling 
power  of  preservation  with  our  race — stands,  in  a  flow¬ 
ing  chlamys ,  an  exquisite  female  form  confronting  these 
frenzied  monsters  ogling,  and  ready  to  grapple  each  other 
over  the  expiring  body  of  her  friend.  And  all  this  time 
the  hilarious  shouts  of  the  half-crazed  betters  and  wine- 
bibbers — “the  people” — seem  to  be  made  audible,  by  the 
visible  outward  signs  of  hand-clapping  and  the  waving  of 
handkerchiefs  and  banners. 

But  these  are  mere  features  of  this  appalling  scene.  At 
the  feet  of  the  terrorized  woman  lie  the  vanquished  forms 
of  two  stalwart  men  in  total  nudity,  and  as  if  fallen  in  the 
desperately  chivalrous  acts  of  defending  the  now  dying  one. 
Between  their  bodies,  sprawling  on  his  back,  lies  a  man¬ 
gled  lion ;  and  on  the  loins  of  the  man  at  the  left,  an  Afri¬ 
can  tiger  of  proportions  huge  and  with  maw  distended, 
is  cufling  off  a  hideous  python  as  though,  by  some  death- 
instinct,  to  prevent  itself  from  being  throttled  in  the  ser¬ 
pent’s  squeeze. 

A  score  of  the  more  innocent  animals  now  encounter 
the  eye ;  some  are  zebras,  some  gazelles,  and  a  number 
:  re  of  the  ursine  brood,  dead  and  dying,  as  if  marked  out 
for  the  first  prey  to  this  sanguinary  conflict.  Then,  be¬ 
tween  an  ugly  rhinoceros  and  a  behemoth  whose  ghastly 


190 


TIR1ATHU& 


t  eeth  part  10  M  the  light  into  his  cavernous  mouth,  fight, 
as  if  in  mutual  compact  for  some  reciprocal  benefit,  a 
muscular  human  champion  and  a  Bengal  tiger,  the  one 
with  the  rhinoceros,  the  other,  the  river-horse;  while  high 
h ove  them  all  dart  the  forked  tongues  of  two  jungle  ser- 
lents- — boas  or  pythons— of  mouths  and  coils  so  huge  that 
.  i  byrinth-like,  their  lengths  are  lost  in  the  whirl  of  the 
dust  and  confusion.  Above  this  chaotic  cyclone  towers 
a  gigantic  elephant  which,  having  parried  by  a  final  blow 
with  his  proboscis,  a  panther  that  is  slipping  lifeless  from 
his  back,  re-engages  with  his  immense  tusks  an  attacking 
lioness,  and  by  murdering  the  two,  succeeds  in  saving 
lor  a  transitory  moment,  his  rider,  a  large,  nude,  human 
creature  who,  ghoul-like,  seems  wrestling  betwixt  the  ex¬ 
hilarations  of  a  fleeting  triumph  and  the  horrors  of  a  por 
tentous  foreknowledge. 

With  tail  erect,  horns  poised,  and  with  fierce,  blood¬ 
shot  eye  impatient  for  the  onslaught,  is  seen  a  bull  rush¬ 
ing  at  a  brace  of  wild  beasts  in  deadly  grapple  farther  to 
the  left;  and  a  coil  of  snakes  in  the  angle  closes  the  furi¬ 
ous  excitement. 

There  does  not  exist  the  flimsiest  argument  to  support 
the  idea  that  these  human  victims  were  not  working  peo¬ 
ple.  Most  of  them  were  prisoners  taken  by  the  Homans 
during  the  wars  of  Viriathus  and  held  for  vengeance  until 
this  ghastly  opportunity  to  wreak  it  arrived.  The  women 
too  who  defencelessly,  as  we  have  described,  shared  the 
horrible  game  whose  moral  effect  upon  the  sight-seers 
was  more  to  madden  their  blood-thirst  than  melt  the 
heart  into  an  anguish  of  pity  and  of  chivalrous  indigna¬ 
tion,  were  often — in  this  case  wholly — faithful  creatures 
who,  like  many  grand  female  characters  of  our  modern 
days,  had,  along  with  Viriathus  and  his  followers,  seized 
Me  noble  cause  of  human  liberty. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


EUNUS. 

GRIEVANCES.  MORE  SALVATION  OK 
THE  VINDICTIVE  PLAN. 

Tab  Irascible  Impulse  in  its  Highest  Development  and  moat 
enormous  Organization — Greatest  of  all  Strikes  found  on  Reo- 
ord — Gigantic  Growth  of  Slavery — General  View  of  Sicilian 
Landlordism  and  Servitude  before  the  Outbreak — Great  In¬ 
crease  of  Bondsmen  and  Women — Enna,  Home  of  the  God¬ 
dess  Ceres,  becomes  the  Stronghold  of  the  Great  Uprising — 
Eunus ;  his  Pedigree — He  is  made  King  of  the  Slaves — Story 
of  his  10  Years*  Reign — Somebody,  ashamed  to  confess  iL 
has  mangled  the  Histories — The  Fragments  of  Diodorus  and 
other  Noble  Authors  Reveal  the  Facts — Cruelties  of  Damo- 
philus  and  Megallis,  the  immediate  Cause  of  the  Grievance — 
Eunus,  Slave,  Fire-spitter,  Leader,  Messiah,  King—  Venge¬ 
ance — The  innocent  Daughter — Sympathy  hand-in-hand  with 
Irascibility  against  Avarice — Wise  Selection  by  Eunus,  of 
Acliseus  as  Lieutenant — Council  of  War — Mass-meeting — A 
Plan  agreed  to — Cruelty  of  the  Slaves — Their  Army — The 
War  begun— Prisons  broken  open  and  60,000  Convicts  work¬ 
ing  in  the  Ergastvla  set  free — Quotations— Sweeping  Extinc¬ 
tion  of  the  Rich — Large  Numbers  of  Free  Tramps  join — An¬ 
other  prodigious  Uprising  in  Southern  Sicily — Cleon — Con¬ 
jectures  regarding  this  Obscure  Military  Genius — Union  of 
Eunus,  Achasus  and  Cleon — Harmony — Victories  over  the 
Romans — Insurgent  Force  rises  to  200,000  Men — Proof — 
Overthrow  and  Extinction  of  the  Armies  of  Hypsseus — Man¬ 
lius — Lentulus — The  Victorious  Workingmen  give  no  Quarter 
— Eunus  as  Mimic,  taunts  his  Enemies  by  Mock  Theatrical, 
Open-Air  Plays  in  the  Sieges — Cities  fall  into  his  Hands — 
His  Speeches — Moral  Aid  through  the  Social  Struggle  with 


EUNUS. 


192 


Gracchus  at  Borne — Arrival  of  a  Roman  Army  under  Piso— 
Beginning  of  Reverses — Crucifixions — Demoralization — Fall 
of  Messana — Siege  of  Enna — Inscriptions  verifying  History 
— Romans  Repulsed — Arrival  of  Rupilius — Siege  of  Tauroma* 
nion — Wonderful  Death  of  0  Oman  us — Cannibalism — The 
City  falls — Awful  C  rucifixions — Second  Siege  of  Enna — Its 
20,000  People  are  crucified  on  the  Gibbet — Eunus  captured 
and  Devoured  by  Lice  in  a  Roman  Dungeon — Disastrous 
End  of  the  Rebellion  or  so-called  Servile  War.  * 

The  enormous  growth  of  slavery  just  before  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  the  Christian  era  was  the  cause  of  several  of  the 
most  gigantic  and  bloody  uprisings  the  world  has  ever 
known.  Those  convulsive  episodes  invariably  arose  from 
maltreatment  of  workingmen  and  women.  Dr.  Biicher, 
whose  delineations  we  so  often  quote,  shows  that  the 
necessary  workmen  for  supplying  slave  material  to  man 
the  great  estates  which  the  Roman  lords,  about  this  time 
were  grasping  from  the  original  cultivators  who  farmed 
the  government  land  on  shares  thus  turning  them  out  of 
house  and  home,  were  bought  and  sold  as  common  goods 
at  ridiculously  low  prices. 1 

In  B.  C.  103  there  were  at  Rome  scarcely  2,000  persons 
owning  property  considered  taxable;  such  was  the  enor¬ 
mous  monopoly  of  the  public  lands  and  of  other  property 
by  a  few.  *  These  few  property  owners  were  proportion¬ 
ally  richer  and  their  management  of  the  army  and  of  the 
legislature,  for  suppressing  uprisings  of  the  outcasts  and 
the  enslaved  proletaries  was  so  much  the  more  unlimited. 
The  freedmen  who  had  many  organizations  for  protection 
which  for  centuries  they  had  enjoyed  when  slaves  were 
comparatively  few,  now  found  their  unions,  their  busi¬ 
ness,  their  homes  and  freedom  undermined  and  supplanted 
by  countless  hordes  of  slaves  as  prisoners  of  war,  victims 
of  the  prodigious  slave  trade  going  on  between  Rome  and 
foreign  markets.  When  Tarentem  was  captured,  B.  C.  209, 
there  were  sold  30,000  war  prisoners.  *  In  B.  C.  207,  af- 


]  Hlicher,  Aufgtdnde  der  u\frrtcn  A^beiter,  S.  85-86;  “Tit.  LiV.  XLI.  28: 
Sop  pronii  Gruecli  cousulis  p  per  o  ausi-icioque  legio  exerci  usque  popiili 
Ron  a  li  Sardtniam  sub  g  t  In  ea  provincia  AOstium  cajsa  aut  ca|  ta  surra 
octoginta  milia.”  Wo  elsewhere  quote  !n  our  copious  footnotes  the  sources 
whence  modem  authors  derive  he  r  figures. 

*  Strabo  Geographic  a,  xiv.  668;  A  pul' jus.  IX 


TEE  ANCIENT  SLAVE  CENSUS 


193 


ter  the  battle  of  Metaurus,  5,400  were  captured  and  sold. 
In  B.  C.  200  at  least  15,000  were  siezed  and  sold.  In  B.  C. 
137,  the  event  of  the  return  of  Tiberius  Gracchus  from 
Sardinia,  the  fact  that  80,000  men,  women  and  children 
had  been  either  killed  or  sold  into  perpetual  slavery,  was 
brought  to  light.  Because  Gracchus,  wThose  grand  nature, 
though  a  military  commander,  revolted  against  such  atroc¬ 
ities  and  sought  reform,  he  was  set  upon  by  a  mob  of  in- 
uriated  legislators  and  wealth-owners,  and  murdered  in 
he  streets  of  Rome.  Such  was  the  enormous  mass  of  the 
Sardinian  slaves  that  prices  fell  to  a  ridiculously  low  ebb 
becoming  a  laughing  stock  and  the  proverb  got  abroad : 
“cheap  as  a  Sardinian.”  After  the  siege  of  Perseus  there 
were  70  cities  destroyed  and  150,000  people  sold  at  the 
different  slave  markets. 4 

This  fearful  condition  of  human  slavery  set  into  Greece 
still  earlier.  By  a  similar  monopoly  of  land  and  of  other 
property  by  the  few,  it  came  to  pass  that  in  the  great  city 
of  Athens  of  515,000  souls,  only  9,000  (B.  O.  300)  could  be 
allowed  political  rights  graded  and  franchised  by  family 
and  property. 6  Other  mention  puts  it  at  21,000  souls  or 
citizens. 6  At  the  same  time,  when  there  were  21,000  prop¬ 
ertied  or  blooded  citizens  and  10,000  strangers  under  pro¬ 
tection  of  the  city,  there  were  400,000  slaves. '  But  as 
Athens  at  that  time  (B.  C.  309,)  counted  515,000  persons, 
we  come  into  a  knowledge  of  the  fact  that  the  remaining 
84,000  were  the  plebeian  or  freedmen  population. 

The  great  city  of  Corinth  whose  census  B.  C.  300,  gave 
only  40,000  “souls”  had  a  slave  population  of  640,000  who 
of  course,  according  to  Plato8  and  other  aristocrats,  could 

*Liv.  XXVII.  16 1  “Milia  trigen  ta  servillum  oapittun  dicuntur  capta. 

•  Liv.  XLV.  24;  Plutarch,  Mmclins  Paulus,  29. 

•  Diodorus  Siculus,  XVIII,  18;  Plutarch’s  Fluxion,  88. 

•  Biicher.  Aufst&nde,  S.  84. 

TAthenseus,  Deipnosophistai,  quoting  Ctesicles. 

•  Plato.  De  Legibus  vi.  in  dissertation  on  the  Immortality  of  tho  soul; 
Phcedo  passim;  especially  74,  126,  T,  8,  9,  Bekk. :  Phcedrus,  61-86 ;  Rtpublis, 
vii.  1-4,  where  the  working-people  are  allotted  half  a  soul,  vi.  9  :  deformed 
by  their  craft  and  servile;  So  Timceus,  xvii.  shows  now  souls  are  a 
growth,  lxxi.  ad  Jin;  Laws,  ix.  8,  Jin;  Statesman,  46:  Yoking  those  who 
wallow  in  ignorance  to  a  race  of  servile  beings.  The  meaning  here  is  that 
such  as  labor  are  tmdivinc ;  i.  e.  not  fully  furnished  with  souls.  Soul  is  in 
two  parts,  mortal  and  immortal,  Statesman,  46,  Timceus,  71,  Laws,  vi-  19; 
Nothing  healthy  in  a  slave’s  soul,  says  Plato,  and  quotes  the  Odyssey ,  XVII. 
832-333.  where  far-thundering,  aristocratic  Jove  deprives  the  slave  of  half 
his  mind,  soul  or  upper  nature. 


194 


EUNUS. 


not  possess  souls  because  too  mean  to  be  honored  by  the 
gods  with  a  thing  so  noble;  and  this  accounts  for  their 
not  being  enumerated  in  the  census  of  the  city.  They  ap¬ 
pear  to  have  been  too  lowly  to  belong  to  the  numbers  of 
mankind.  * 

Notwithstanding  this  fearful  condition  of  despotism  we 
find  that  the  Locrians  in  south  Italy  had  no  slaves,  being 
organized  communists.  From  the  first  settlement  of  this 
rich  country  by  the  Pythagoreans  no  slaves  are  known  to 
have  existed  until  after  the  Roman  conquests;10  and  con¬ 
sequently  the  culture  among  them  of  equal  rights  when  it 
came  to  clash  against  the  enormous  spread  of  slavery  by 
the  cruel  conquests  of  Rome,  no  doubt  urged  the  great 
epidemic  of  uprisings  which  form  the  subject  of  this  and 
other  chapters  of  the  present  work. 

It  is  somewhat  surprising,  in  the  full  face  of  these  facts 
and  the  agonizing  struggles  of  competitive  warfare  upon 
which  these  brutalities  existed,  that  men  still  ask  in  won¬ 
der  regarding  the  causes  of  downfall  of  the  Greek  and  Rom¬ 
an  empires !  Another  veritable  renaissance ,  this  time 
comprising  sociologic  research  and  comparative  history, 
is  at  our  threshold,  destined  to  clear  up  many  a  point  that 
for  want  of  a  true  knowledge  of  the  problem  of  labor  has, 
through  the  ages,  lain  obscured  midst  the  shortcomings 
of  scorn  and  the  musty  vellum  of  histories  and  of  laws. 

In  Sicily  the  condition  of  affairs  was  shocking.  This 
fruitful  island,  which  as  early  as  B.  0.  210,  had  been  con¬ 
quered  by  Rome  and  turned  into  a  Roman  province,  waa 
an  especial  offering  to  that  hideously  cruel  system  of  slav¬ 
ery  which  Roman  character,  above  all  others,  seemed  by 
nature  most  suited  to  develop  with  the  blind  attributes  of 
barbarity.  As  an  instance  of  their  grasping  concentra¬ 
tion  of  Sicilian  property  into  few  hands  we  quote  author¬ 
ities  to  the  effect  that  Leontini  had  but  88  landed  prop¬ 
erty  holders;  Mutice  but  188;  Herbita  257;  Agyrium 
230.  The  property  owners  of  whole  cities  could  be  counted 
by  the  dozen . 11  All  Sicily  was  overrun  with  slaves  by  birth 

9  Xenophon,  De  Vectig.  IV.  14;  Athen®us  V.;  Bhckh,  Laurische  Stl- 
berb.  122-4,  all  give  accounts  of  great  slave  owners. 

10  Tiie  Locrians  had  no  slaves  which  seems  to  be  regarded  by  Plato  as 
something  phenomenal:  Timaeus ,  ii.  Bekk. ;  Bbckh,  Pub.QSkon,  Athn .  also 
declares  that  they  had  no  slaves.  Not  only  did  the  ancients  have  vast 
numbers  of  slaves  (see  Encyc.  Bril.  vol.  xx.  p.  140),  but  there  were  many 
freedmon  at  a  very  early  age.  See  Homer,  0d«M«y,  XI.  440. 

u  Bttcher,  Aufst .  d.  unf.  Arb.  8.  89. 


ENORMOUS  SLAVE  AND  FREEDMEN'S  WAR. 


and  slaves  of  the  auction  eh  arables.  The  original  inhab¬ 
itants  were  dispossessed  and  driven  from  the  land  or  re¬ 
mained  as  slaves.  The  small  farmers  had  been  either  an¬ 
nihilated  or  crowded  together  in  little  towns  to  eke  out  a 
wretched  existence  under  the  terrors  of  intimidation,  or 
had  been  dragged  down  to  bondage. 13  Great  numbers  of 
Syrians  who  from  their  mountain  homes  where  they  were 
inured  to  brisk  physical  activities,  were  brought  overby  the 
Romans  in  chains,  to  till  the  lands  as  slaves.  Such  was 
the  extent  of  slavery  everywhere. 18  Greece  at  that  time 
was  being  conquered  and  her  hardy  ‘warriors  humbled  to 
slavery,  sent  in  great  numbers  in  chains  to  Syracuse  to  be 
transported  to  the  fruitful  lands  which  in  the  days  of  Ver- 
res  were  styled  the  granary  of  Rome. 14  The  Roman  con¬ 
quests  of  the  Carthagenians  and  the  victories  over  Hanni¬ 
bal  were  followed  by  the  greater  cruelties  for  their  having 
been  dearly  won.  Thousands  of  Africans  hardened  to  ar¬ 
my  life  in  the  Punic  wars,  were  sent  into  Sicily  as  slaves 
to  dig  the  soil  for  the  proud  Roman  occupants  of  that 
land.  “  Only  the  fattest  portions  of  land  were  cared  for, 
the  new  possessors’  idea  being  only  gain.  Strabo  declares 
that  so  far  as  the  aesthetic  was  concerned  all  was  a  barren 
waste.  There  were  many  beautiful  and  fruitful  valleys 
and  some  plateaus  which  had  long  been  celebrated  for  fer¬ 
tility  and  fine  landscape. 

Among  the  wonderfully  fertile  and  paradisaical  plateaus 
of  Sicily  was  that  of  Enna,  the  seat  of  the  greatest  prole¬ 
tarian  strike,  insurrection  or  bond  and  free  labor  war  of 
of  which  history,  tradition  or  inscriptions  give  an  account 
in  any  country  of  the  globe. 

This  great  strike  or  labor  mutiny  of  Enna  in  Sicily  took 
place,  according  to  the  conclusions  of  Dr.  Bucher, 16  be¬ 
tween  the  years  143  and  133  before  Christ,  lasting  10  full 
years.  During  a  period  of  three  years  the  Syrian  slave- 
king  Eunus,  from  Apamea  near  Antioch  but  a  few  leagues 


“Diodorus  S’culus,  XXXIV.  fragment  il.  3,  4  and  elsewhere,  Dind. 
“Drnmann,  Arb.  u.  Komm.  S.  24;  “In  Epidamnos  gab  ts  keine  lland- 
werkerals  dieoflentl  chen  Sklaven.’ 

“Diod.  i.  1,2;  i.27;  Columella,  Dt  Re  Ruatica,  I.  6,  3,  8, 15, 16, 
i&Strabo,  Geog.  VI.;  Bitch.  S.  40. 

Au/st&nde  d.  unf.  Arb.  S.  121-128,  Exeurs.  As  to  the  name,  notwith 
standing  Dr.  Slefert.  we  follow  the  Givek  E'vva,  though  some  [tomans 
wrote  “Henna.” 


196 


EUNUS. 


to  the  northward  of  Nazareth,  held  sway  oyer  all  of  the 
central  districts  of  Sicily;  and  from  the  most  reliable  evi¬ 
dence  he  reigned,  after  his  coalition  with  Cleon  in  B.  C. 
140,  for  seven  more  years,  over  the  whole  island  of  Sicily. 

Introductorily  to  this  extraordinary  fact,  proving  the 
great  power  and  vigorous  leadership  of  some  of  the  an¬ 
cient  labor  agitations,  it  will  he  necessary  to  bring  upon 
the  scene  a  brief  description  of  the  place,  the  prevailing 
social  conditions  and  an  outline  of  the  character  of  the 
men. 

The  three  leading  men  who  originated  and  managed 
this  great  servile  war,  were  Eunus,  Achaeus,  and  Cleon. 
Their  two  enormous  armies,  aggregating  200,000  soldiers 
were  united  in  B.  C.  140,  when  Eunus  was  proclaimed  the 
monarch  over  Sicily  entire. 

We  thus  introduce  these  three  branded,  enslaved  work¬ 
ingmen  to  the  reader.  We  say  branded  and  mean  in  the 
expression  by  no  means  a  figure.  They  were  not  only 
branded,  as  at  the  moment  we  write,  leaders  of  this  labor 
movement  are  branded,  with  obloquy,  black-list  and  stig¬ 
ma  of  men  at  the  helm  of  public  literature.  They  were 
literally  and  indelibly  branded  with  hot  irons.17  Large 
numbers  of  quotations  from  the  authors  most  explicitly 
prove  that  all  slaves  were  branded;  and  the  field  workers 
were  not  only  branded  on  the  forehead  and  limbs,  but 
often  on  the  body;  and  since  they  were  obliged,  like  the 
helots  of  Sparta,  to  go  mostly  naked,  these  disfigurations 
were  summer  and  winter  exposed  to  view  and  not  only 
was  their  disgrace  stamped  upon  them  forever  but  their 
chances  of  escape  from  bondage  utterly  destroyed. 

Once  on  the  very  spot  where  this  great  outbreak  of  the 
slaves  and  freedmen  occurred,  the  plateau  valley  of  Enna, 
there  lived  a  very  rich  man  named  Damophilus.  He  pos¬ 
sessed  legions  of  slaves  whom  he  forced  under  sting  of  the 
lash,  to  work  naked  upon  his  farms.  His  wealth  of  acre¬ 
age,  “latifundium/’  consisted  in  part  of  stock  farms.  These 
teemed  with  herds  of  cattle  and  other  animals  which  in 
those  times  throughout  Europe  were  a  large  source  of 

17  Biich.  S.  42,  “Dass  Alle  gebrandmarkt,  nur  die  Feldarbeiter  auch  ge- 
fesselt  waren.”  Consult  the  following  ancient  and  modem  works:  Die- 
dorus,  XXXIV.  frag.  ii.  1,  27,  82,  36;  Florus,  III.  19;  Mafquardt,  V.  i.  186* 
Mom.  “Romische  Geschichte;”  Mom.  “G.  I.”  no.  845;  Siefert,  "Erst.  Sieilisch 
Sklavenkrieg,”  S.  12:  Plato. 


THE  SAVAGv  SLAVE-HOLDER, . 


107 


Roman  wealth.  One  day  a  few  of  his  poor,  naked  slaves, 
shivering  in  the  chill  winds  of  the  mountain  height  upon 
which  Enna  stood,  came  to  him  and  beseechingly  implored 
a  few  rags  to  cover  their  bodies  and  shut  out  the  cold  which 
added  to  their  sufferings.  Their  daring  plea  was  an¬ 
swered  by  this  cold-hearted  capitalist  with  something  like 
the  following  cutting  leer:  “Don’t  wandering  tax-gath¬ 
erers  tramp  the  country  naked  and  must’nt  they  give  their 
clothes  to  those  who  want  them  ?  Would’nt  I  be  taxed  a 
customs  duty  on  the  rags  I  gave  you?” 18  With  that  Da- 
mophilus  ordered  the  shivering  wretches  to  be  tied  to  the 
whipping  post  and  warmed  up  with  a  sound  hogging,  then 
sent  back  naked  to  their  labor  of  caring  for  their  master’ 
flocks  of  a  thousand  animals. 

Under  such  intense  aggravations  what  else  could  be  ex¬ 
pected  than  a  secret  organization  of  the  thus  abused  and 
degraded  laborers  who  worked  the  lands  ?  This  question 
comes  the  more  cogently  as  we  realize  that  large  num¬ 
bers  of  them  were  as  intelligent  or  more  so  than  their  own 
masters.  Just  at  this  epoch,  as  already  shown, 19  all  over 
Greece,  Syria,  Palestine,  Asia  Minor  and  the  islands  of 
the  Archipelago  vast  numbers  of  trade  unions  and  social 
societies  existed  among  the  freedmen  and  some  among 
the  slaves.  We  also  know  that  when  the  Romans  seized 
upon  newly  conquered  countries  they  likewise  seized  the 
people,  bond  and  free  and  sold  them  into  slavery.  Large 
numbers  of  these  unfortunates  were  organized  unionists, 
accustomed  at  home  to  the  art  and  secret  of  practiced  com¬ 
bination.  20  Another  still  more  important  cause  of  the  ter¬ 
rible  strike  which  resulted  from  such  ill-treatment  was  a 
similarity  of  language.  All  Sicily  was  Greek.  The  Greek 
was  the  principal  tongue  spoken  in  Syria  and  even  Phoe¬ 
nicia  and  other  portions  of  Palestine  at  and  before  the 
time  of  Christ;  although  a  bad  Hebrew  was  the  popular 
idiom.  All  the  island  inhabitants  near  by  spoke  the  pure 
Greek.  It  also  was  spoken  in  Magna  Grsecia  or  Lower 

18Diod.  frag.  ii.  38,  Dind. 

19  Chapter  xx.  Infra,  on  trade  unions  citing  inscriptions,  laws  &c.  in 
evidence.  Diodorus,  XXXVI.  frag.  6  Dind.  tells  us  that  not  only  slaves  but 
many  freedmen  were  engaged  in  these  mutinies  and  strikes  causing  great 
tumults  and  confusions. 

29  Compare  Liiclers,  Dimysische  Runs  tier, ;  Also  Foucart,  Associations  Rel. 
throws  much  light  upon  the  subject  of  their  religious  beliefs. 


BOMB  OF  CERES,  GODDESS  OF  LABOR . 


Italy.  Thus  with  intelligence,  with  a  practiced  knowledge 
of  social  combinations,  with  a  sense  of  their  wrongs  made 
keen  by  the  memory  of  happier  days,  writh  the  true  blood 
of  the  proud  Greeks  coursing  more  or  less  through  their 
veins  and  finally  but  most  practically,  with  the  powerful 
Greek  tongue  uniformly  at  their  command,  they  under¬ 
took  that  immense  strike-rebellion  amidst  certain  advan¬ 
tages  which  must  go  far  toward  clearing  away  the  phe¬ 
nomena  of  its  transient  success. 

The  slave  grievance  rapidly  grew  into  a  movement  for 
resistance  in  and  around  Enna,  the  little  pastoral  city,  fa¬ 
mous  for  its  temple  of  Ceres  whence  Plato  had  carried 
Proserpine,  the  daughter  of  that  goddess  to  whom  shep¬ 
herds,  planters  and  especially  working  people  had  from  a 
high  antiquity  looked,  for  her  gifts  of  prosperity. 31  Thus 
here  we  find  the  link  completing  the  chain  of  curious  in¬ 
terest  connecting  the  history  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries 
with  that  of  the  ancient  labor  movement.  Those  labor¬ 
ing  people  were  religious ;  but  about  this  time  they  were 
bitterly  complaining  that  Ceres  their  favorite  goddess  had 
forsaken  them. 33  Enna  was  the  original,  ancient  seat  and 
citadel  or  throne  of  the  great  goddess  Demeter,  called  in 
Latin  Ceres.  She  was  the  protecting  immortal  who  in  the 
Pagan  mjdhology,  seated  in  her  temple  on  the  heights  of 
Enna  in  the  island’s  center,  shielded  all  Sicily  from  fam¬ 
ine.  Her  name  had  spread  to  foreign  lands  and  she  was 
worshiped  in  Attica  and  Syria.  Thousands  came  on  an¬ 
nual  pilgrimages  to  Enna  to  worship  at  the  temple  of  Ceres; 
and  great  feasts  to  her  were  here  regularly  celebrated,  be¬ 
cause  she  -was  believed  the  mother  of  the  world  and  the 
fructifying  goddess  of  all  nutritious,  fruit-bearing  seeds 
tof  agriculture,  especially  the  cereals.  Near  that  city  lay, 
at  the  time  of  our  story  the  meadow  and  by  it  the  stream 
and  the  spring  and  grottoed  rock  where  her  beautiful 
daughter3*  Persephone  or  Proserpine,  whilst  gathering 
‘lowers,  was  stolen  by  Pluto  and  long  hidden  from  her  dis¬ 
tracted  mother.  The  meadow  was  bedecked  with  a  grand 
carpeting  of  roses,  hyacinths  aud  violets  and  the  soft  zeph- 

81  See  chapt<  r  Iv.  on  the  mythical  legend  of  Proserpine’s  abduction,  the 
Eleusinian  mysteries  and  the  grit".  ance  of  the  proletarian  outcasts. 

22  Bit  her,  Aufst&nde,  S.  62. 

28 Consult  E7, eye.  Brit.  Art.  Ceres;  La  Rousse,  Did.  Unit.  Art.  pr^scsfAn*. 
Much  litciature  is  ytant  confirming  these  statements. 


THE  SLA  VE  KING. 


199 

yrs  of  summer  were  aromatic  with  their  odors.  All  the 
landscape  was  adorned  with  nature’s  tempting  vegetation. 
Many  a  tiny  lake  with  pure,  clear  waters  peeped  from  be¬ 
tween  the  hills  and  hillocks  of  Enna  and  rich,  well  culti¬ 
vated  lands  on  every  side  were,  and  had  for  centuries  been 
the  pride  of  Sicily.84  Wheat  and  other  cereals  had  long- 
prospered  with  such  success  that  the  place  had  obtained  a 
celebrity.  And  yet,  midst  all  these  magnificent  offerings 
of  nature  we  see  this  region  a  scene  of  the  most  brutal 
and  greed-cursed  slavery  to  be  found  in  the  annals  of  that 
insatiate  institution. 

Antigenes  is  the  name  of  one  of  a  joint  stock  company 
whose  business  at  that  time  was  traffic  in  human  beings. 
He  certainly  owned  a  city  residence  at  Enna  and  kept  his 
slaves  about  the  house.25  Among  these  was  a  man  who, 
bom  and  brought  up  in  Apamea  near  Antioch,  Syria,  had 
more  than  probably  been  a  leader  of  an  “eranos”  2a  or  a 
“thiasos’’  in  his  native  home.  This  is  made  the  more  prob¬ 
able  by  his  being  a  pretentious  prophet  and  Messiah  while 
in  a  state  of  bondage  at  Enna.  It  was  the  wonderful  Eunus; 
the  magician,  fire-spitter,  wonder-worker,  prophet  and  the 
plotter  of  the  hugest  slave  insurrection  of  ancient  or  mod¬ 
ern  times;  slave-king  of  Enna,  then  king  of  all  Sicily  and 
commander  in  chief  at  one  time  of  over  200,000  soldiers; 
— the  man  who,  -with  his  sagacious  generals,  faithful  and 
true,  beat  army  after  army  of  the  Romans,  sent  years  in 
succession,  to  meet  his  slave  and  freedmen  troops  and  who 
in  the  teeth,  as  it  were,  of  Syracuse  and  of  prouder  Rome, 
actually  reigned  in  humane  splendor,  apparently  beloved 
and  respected,  for  a  period  of  ten  years;  constituting  a 
veritable  epoch  of  history,  though  nearly  lost  and  quite 
unrecognized  through  the  taint  of  labor.  We  shall  confine 
ourselves  to  a  relation  of  all  the  facts  and  particulars  to 
be  had,  based  upon  the  evidence  quoted  and  which  per- 

u  Strabo,  “Geog.”  VI.:  Consult  tne  exquisite  picture  of  the  landscape 
gives  by  Dr.  Bticher,  “Aufstttnde”  etc.  S.  62. 

**  Diod.  XXXIV  frag.  ii.  6,  Dind. 

w  “Id.”  frag.  ii.  I,  6,  “seq.”  For  fuller  description  of  these  trade  or  labor 
unions  see  chapters  xiid. — xx.  Eunus,  Cleon  and  Athenioa  were  all  born 
near  the  home  of  Jesus. 

27  Bflch.  S.  64:  "Er  war  ein  grosser  Magier  und  Wunderthater,  der  zu 
den  GUttern  in  nftchster  Bezieung  stand  xmd  nicht  nur  im  Traume  von 
ihnen  die  Zukunft  erfurh,  sondern  auch  in  wachendem  Zustande  sie  leib 
haftig  vor  sich  gah.” 


900 


EUNUS. 


haps,  no  person  on  thorough  criticism,  will  be  able  to  con¬ 
trovert.  Eunus  was  a  prophet.  He  pretended  to  work 
miracles, 27  and  was  one  of  the  ancient  Messiahs. 

But  we  must  not  suppose  that  he  was  a  weak  minded 
man  because  he  knew  how  to  blow  fire  from  his  mouth  or 
because  he  vaunted  presages  which  often  came  true.  He 
was  in  all  probability  an  extraordinary  man,  full  of  shrewd 
wisdom,  endowed  with  almost  superhuman  courage  and 
certainly  with  great  judgment  and  patience  in  selecting 
his  generals  and  in  giving  and  indulging,  to  keep  them  in 
place  and  power  while  holding  to  himself  supreme  con¬ 
trol.  28  When  a  slave  he  foretold  that  although  the  god¬ 
dess  Demeter  or  Ceres  had  apparently  forsaken  the  poor, 
yet  she  was  revealing  herself  in  dreams  to  him  and  prom¬ 
ising  her  might  to  their  deliverance. 29  So  certain  was  he 
of  theocratic  interference  that  he  told  of  his  mediatorial 
powers  not  only  to  his  fellow  working  people  but  even  to 
his  master  and  to  all  the  lords  and  ladies,  who,  to  beguile 
their  evening  hours,  used  to  invite  or  more  probably,  or¬ 
der  him  to  recount  the  results  of  his  nightly  interviews 
with  the  august  goddess.  Pretending  that  as  she  was  also 
the  patron  deity  of  Syria  his  native  land,  he  maintained 
that  she  revealed  herself  to  him  with  an  assurance  that  he 
was  to  become  a  king  and  deliverer.  Even  these  super¬ 
natural  things  he  told  to  Antigenes  at  these  banquets  amid 
the  laughter  and  derision  of  the  skeptical  guests.  His  in¬ 
genuousness  worked  upon  their  curiosity  and  their  invita¬ 
tions  were  apparently  made  with  a  purpose  of  amusement 
during  their  orgies  of  wine  and  gluttony.  Their  sport,  he 
however,  seems  to  have  overlooked,  taking  their  vein  of 
merriment  or  ridicule  in  a  manner  peculiar  to  himself 

From  what  followed,  it  cannot  be  imputed  to  Eunus  that 
he  was  weak  minded.  He  promised  Antigenes  to  except 
and  spare  him  trn  the  day  of  wrath — an  obligation  which 
he  religiously  kept  and  faithfully  carried  out. 

The  cruelties  of  Pamopliilus, 30  who  caused  his  working 
hands  to  be  whipped,  struck  deeply  into  the  sensitive  feel¬ 
ings  of  thousands  of  other  men.  They  were  able  to  come 
together,  secretly  or  otherwise  to  discuss  their  sufferings 

Died.  Idem,  fragment  ii.  5,  fl. 

»  Diod.  XXXIV.  5,  6  7,  and  8  of  frag,  tk 
w  Idem,  XXXIV.  frag.  ii.  34,  96.  Dind. 


A  GRUEL  WOMAN.  THE  COMPLOT. 


201 


and  form  their  plot.  Dr.  Btlcher  understands  from  glean¬ 
ings  of  the  Vatican  and  other  fragments  that  the  plot  orig¬ 
inated  with  the  slaves  of  Damophilus.  81  It  is  however, 
quite  certain  that  what  came  to  pass  was  spontaneous  re¬ 
sulting  from  a  combination  of  grievances  and  a  strong  re¬ 
ligious  belief  in  Eunus.  The  other  slaves  of  Antigenes 
also  took  part. 

Damophilus  and  his  yet  more  cruel  wife  Megallis,  appeal 
to  have  been  models  of  ferocity.  Their  young  and  beau¬ 
tiful  daughter  was  the  exception.  Megallis  was  in  the 
habit  of  whipping  her  female  slaves  to  death  with  her  own 
hand.  It  was  like  a  mania  people  sometimes  possess,  for 
delighting  in  scenes  of  suffering.  Endowed  with  unlim¬ 
ited  power  through  the  Roman  laws  and  usages,  to  do  as 
she  pleased,  she  suited  any  action  to  fancy  and  gloried  in 
tearing  the  poor  life  from  her  helpless  victims.  Nor  was 
the  ferocity  of  her  husband  much  less.  The  incident  we 
have  recited  was  probably  one  of  leniency  compared  with 
many  that  remain  untold,  Certain  it  is,  that  his  atroci¬ 
ties  together  with  those  of  his  wife  toward  her  defence¬ 
less  female  slaves  are  what  decided  this  great  uprising. 

But  we  have  the  extremely  pleasing  assurance  that  the 
feeling  which  those  slaves  entertained  toward  the  kind- 
hearted  daughter  of  this  ferocious  pair — a  young  maiden 
whom  they  all  loved — proved  her  palladium  ;  for  with  the 
greatest  tenderness  they  guarded  and  spared  her  through 
the  scenes  of  blood.  ” 

Plans  of  a  great  revolutionary  revolt  were  soon  decided 
upon,  and  collusion  with  Eunus  secured  the  sympathy  of 
the  city  slaves.  These  arrangements  were  then  commu¬ 
nicated  to  those  in  the  country. 

The  plot  was  thus  completed  and  the  moment  set.  All 
had  enthusiastically  determined  to  break  loose  by  a  desper¬ 
ate  struggle,  from  their  unendurable  tortures  and  daimt- 
lessly  brave  the  storm  with  all  the  consequences  this  per¬ 
ilous  action  entailed.  They  had  worked  themselves  up  to 
believe  that  their  goddess  would  be  propitious. 

By  preconcerted  arrangement,  four  hundred  slaves  as¬ 
sembled  at  the  setting  in  of  night,  in  a  field  near  the  cita- 

n  Bttch«r  Anfst&ndt  dc.  S.  55. 

•* Diod.  XXXIV.  il.  89:  ‘‘"Oti  Kara,  rrjv  SiKiXiav  tov  &anQ<t>i\ov  #vy<£r»)/i 
. 'SpuMAt,  iurtfyaycv  Kara r*}*'  nfios  tikis  otKtious.” 


202 


EUNUS. 


del  of  Elina.  They  quickly  organized  a  meeting.  They 
then  each  took  a  sacred  oath  to  persevere  in  their  enter¬ 
prise  and  hold  fast  together.  The  little  multitude  came 
armed.  Their  weapons  each  had  obtained  as  best  he  could. 
All  were  armed  with  courage  and  with  anger;  and  each 
determined  to  defend  his  new  liberty  to  the  death.  They 
marched  up  to  the  Enna  heights  under  a  leader  who  used 
all  his  prodigious  arts  and  legerdemain,  gesture,  and  fire¬ 
spitting,  to  encourage  them  and  prevent  a  panic.  With¬ 
out  meeting  resistance  they  gained  admission  through  the 
gates,  into  the  city. 

There  were  the  millionaires  with  the  ladies,  the  tem¬ 
ple  of  the  goddess,  the  theatre,  the  place  of  entertainment. 
The  insurgents  instantly  took  possession  of  the  streets 
and  as  they  marched,  singled  out  their  well  known  victims. 
Rich  men  and  women  who  long  had  held  unbridled  power 
over  hitherto  helpless  slaves,  now  saw  the  danger  as  they 
felt  their  guilt.  Pitiless  was  the  retributive  reaction  of 
the  enraged  and  surging  mass.  They  brained  their  own¬ 
ers  ;  and  those  who  had  made  sport  of  their  leader  Eunus, 
likewise  bit  the  dust.  All  slaves  and  prisoners  found  in 
dungeous  and  in  irons  were  set  free.38  A  terrible  scene 
followed.  Children  were  torn  from  their  mothers’  arms, 
and  women  ravished  in  presence  of  their  husbands,  who, 
bound  in  cords,  could  make  no  resistance  to  this  fiendish¬ 
ness.  Scenes  of  death  were  everywhere  enacted ;  for  from 
the  onset  of  this  bloody  work,  the  slaves,  stinging  with  a 
keen  memory  of  their  sufferings,34  enjoyed  with  a  peculiar 
glee  which  fills  the  savage,  the  opportunity,  each  with  cuts 
and  gashes  to  cross  out  his  ghastly  account.  To  a  thus 
quickened  lust  of  vengeance,  there  rushed  a  remembrance 
of  the  cruelties  of  Damophilus  who  gloated  on  the  bruises 
of  his  clubs  and  the  sting  of  his  whips,  and  of  Megallis, 
his  wife,  who  had  whipped  to  death  her  female  servants. 
It  was  an  hour  of  vengeance.  All  centered  upon  this  sweet¬ 
est  morsel  of  the  savage ; — summary  retribution.  Blood 
of  the  now  helpless  rich  flowed  freely  amid  the  yells  of 
the  naked  slaves  whose  brands  and  scars  gleamed  hide¬ 
ously  by  the  fires  of  the  burning  houses  of  their  fallen 
masters.  Great  numbers  of  slave-holders  paid  their  for¬ 
mer  acts  of  indiscretion  with  their  lives. 

’»  I  Mod.  XXXIV.  fra-  ii.  12.  Id.  Sec.  49 


A  TERRIBLE  SCENE  * OF  CARNAGE . 


ZU3 

Large  numbers  of  slaves  who  were  kept  in  service  within 
the  city  and  who  had  previously  been  prepared  for  the  cri¬ 
sis,  now  joined  the  insurgents,  swelling  their  forces  and 
making  the  capture  of  the  city  complete. 

We  have  in  other  pages 35  shown  that  in  nearly  all  trade 
unions,  especially  the  branch  of  them  known  as  the  thiasoi , 
they  seem  to  have  had  an  officer  whose  duty  it  was  to  fore¬ 
tell,  work  miracles  and  do  other  sage  things,  such  as  in 
those  early  ages  of  the  world  were  not  only  common,  but 
were  thought  necessary.  The  idea  of  a  Messiah  or  deliv¬ 
erer  sent  from  heaven  to  ransom  the  lowly  from  their  ev¬ 
erywhere  prevailing  misery  permeated  all  their  organiza¬ 
tions.  86  Eunus  therefore,  in  his  pretentions,  but  copied 
from  thousands. 

The  hours  of  grateful  vengeance  sped  on  the  breezes 
of  that  truculent  lullaby.  Object  after  object  of  their  de¬ 
testation  and  hatred  was  dragged  forth  and  amid  screams 
for  mercy,  relentlessly  silenced  with  knife,  flames  and  blud¬ 
geon  until  before  the  fury  waned  the  pitiful  wails  of  the 
slaughtered  grew  faint  through  sheer  extermination. 

But  one  there  wras  who  yet  remained  uncaptured  and 
unpunished.  This  was  Damophilus.  On  consultation  it 
was  ascertained  that  he  vvas  cowering  in  his  pavillion,  a 
little  distance  from  the  city.  The  insurgents  sent  thither 
a  detachment  with  orders  to  bring  him  in  alive.  By  this 
time  the  rage  of  the  slaves  had  begun  to  assuage.  They 
brought  their  great  abuser  before  Eunus  in  the  auditori¬ 
um  of  the  theatre,  whither  they  adjourned  to  hold  a  trial 
of  his  case,  Damophilus,  covered  with  wounds  and  bleed¬ 
ing,  his  anus  pinioned,  his  fine  dress  torn  and  soiled,  was 
dragged  before  the  stfT  maddened  crowd,  his  wife  Meg- 
allis  with  him,  both  trembling  in  fateful  expectancy  of  their 
doom. 

The  rich  man  was  granted  an  opportunity  to  answer 
and  spar  the  scathin  g  accusations  that  were  heaped  upon 
him — bitter  reminders  of  his  mercilessness  to  them  when 
the  power  was  his  to  abuse  them.  But  Damophilus  coyly 
and  cunningly  met  each  accusation  with  words  clothed  in 
ambiguity  and  dazzle  and  parried  off  their  bitter  bluntness 
by  his  affected  utterances  of  honeyed  words.  He  was 


Chapter  xvi'l.  and  elsewhere. 


*«  Foucart,  Associations  Rtl 


204 


EUNUS. 


making  inroads  upon  their  sympathies  when  Zeuxes  and 
Hermias,  two  powerful  Greek  slaves,  who  had  themselves, 
in  other  days  been  victims  of  his  cruelty,  rushed  between 
him  and  hope,  one  with  a  dagger  and  the  other  an  axe. 
These  men  were  keenly  sensible  to  the  progress  Damo- 
philus  was  making  on  the  susceptibilities  of  his  tatterde¬ 
malion  jury;  and  fearing  lest  his  mellifluous  explanations 
should  overcome  them  and  that  they  might  thus  commit 
the  absurdity  of  punishing  thousands  less  stamped  with 
cruelties  and  turn  loose  the  deep-dyed  monsters  whose 
atrocities  were  the  immediate  cause  of  the  revolt, 87  they 
crashed  down  the  aisle  of  the  theatre,  advanced  upon  him 
weapons  drawn  and  put  a  violent  end  to  this  mock  trial 
of  their  foe  by  beating  out  his  brains  upon  the  spot.  Di¬ 
odorus  relates  that  one  of  them  stabbed  him  with  a  knife 
in  the  side  and  the  other  chopped  off  his  head  with  the 
axe.  Nor  was  this  all.  The  terrified  Megallis,  who  must 
have  seen  the  reeking  knife  and  the  merciless  guillotine  by 
which  her  husband  had  fallen,  heard  his  pleadings  for  an 
extension  of  life  and  with  horror  beheld  his  ghastly  pun¬ 
ishment,  was  delivered  up,  bound  hand  and  foot,  to  the 
tender  mercies  of  her  female  slaves  little  less  instinctively 
savage  than  their  male  companions  frenzied  with  woman’s 
hatred  and  still  goaded  by  memory’s  spectres  of  their 
own  mothers  and  daughters  perishing  under  the  lash  once 
wielded  by  this  most  pitiless  enemj7,  the  now  supplicating 
Megallis’  own  hand.  Little  could  be  hoped  for  under  such 
circumstances.  Mercy  was  impossible.  The  horrified  and 
shrieking  lady  was,  like  Damophilus,  arraigned  for  mock 
trial  before  a  horde  of  nude  and  blood-grimed  women, 
taunted  until  each  imbittered  one  requited  herself  with  cen¬ 
sure  and  derision,  with  dallying  flings  and  a  satiety  of  jeers 
such  as  only  wild  women  avenging  a  wounded  love,  pos¬ 
sess  the  genius  to  consummate.  When  all  these  prelim¬ 
inaries  were  ended,  Megallis  was  seized  by  a  dozen  mus¬ 
cular  females,  stripped  of  her  finery  and  undoubtedly  her 
clothes,  dragged  to  the  pinacle  of  a  lofty  crag  in  which  the 
mountain  city  of  Enna  abounds.  All  effort  of  the  shriek¬ 
ing,  fainting  woman  to  writhe  out  of  their  clutching  fin¬ 
gers  fast  fixed  upon  her  throat  and  body  were  unavailing 


S7Diod.  frag,  ii  14,  DIndort'. 


THE  FRIGHTFUL  EXECUTION. 


205 


and  fruitless.  They  drew  her  out  upon  the  projecting  ' 
prominence  yawning  over  the  abyss  well  known  to  the 
shuddering  unfortunate  as  the  Golgotha  of  miscreants  and 
recalcitrant  slaves.  From  these  frowning  crags  eagles  and 
ominous  night-birds  were  wont  to  startle  the  listener  with 
their  screams.  Legends  of  horrors  of  this  fatal  rock  were 
told  by  mothers  as  early  inculcations  to  their  babes.  Tins 
wretched  victim  may  have  also  more  than  once  contributed 
her  ingenuity  descanting  upon  its  boding  gloom  and  ter¬ 
rors  as  she  lavished  it  on  the  torture  of  her  now  avenging 
chattels. 

But  all  this  sentimentalism  suffices  nothing  in  presence 
of  so  ghastly  a  reality  as  the  death  that  now  frowned,  and 
stared  this  quivering  mother  in  the  face.  The  unimpress- 
ible  avengers  were  not  to  be  frustrated  by  the  moans  and 
sobs  which  formed  a  part  of  the  solace  of  their  grievances. 
When  they  had  dragged  her  to  the  very  brink  they  no 
doubt  made  her  undergo  some  of  the  prevailing  formulas 
of  death  and  then  plunged  her  headlong  down  the  preci¬ 
pice  where  she  was  battered  to  a  jelly  upon  the  sharp  flints 
of  the  dell  below.  Such,  according  to  Diodorus,  Strabo, 
the  modern  critics  and  some  tale-telling  inscriptions,  was 
the  fate  of  an  ancient  millionaire  and  his  wife  whom  great 
prosperity  had  rendered  void  of  all  the  amenities  and 
lovliness  of  civilized  life. 

There  yet  remained  one  member  of  that  fate-stricken 
family — the  daughter  already  alluded  to ;  a  young  lady  of 
both  tender  age  and  heart. 88  This  damsel  had  from  her 
babyhood  shown  exceeding  sympathy  and  kindness  to¬ 
ward  the  female  slaves  in  their  misfortunes.  Never  had 
she  taken  part  in  her  mother’s  cruelties.  She  had,  on  the 
contrary,  shown  them  the  tenderest  commiseration ;  and 
her  many  little  offerings  during  their  sufferings,  had  often 
gone  far  in  the  direction  of  healing  a  breach  between  fate 
and  despair.  Those  whom  the  master’s  love  of  vengeance 
had  left  bound  and  often  chained  in  dungeons  of  the  er- 
gastulum ,  with  which  ancient  slave  farms  were  cursed,  she 
had  comforted  and  administered  to.  Could  such  kindness 
be  now  forgotten?  Gould  the  remembiv:  ce  of  this  child- 
benefactress,  even  in  that  awful  vortex  oi  ‘a  iolence,  be  over¬ 
looked?  Could  conscience  be  stifled  even  midst  butcheries 


••  Dlod.  fray;.  80. 


206 


A'UNUS. 


whose  mocking  carnival  made  death  a  satire  upon  empty 
ideas  of  right  and  wrong?  Or  could  such  a  pretty  thin> 
as  sympathy  wedge  itself  in  amongst  the  howls  and  tur¬ 
bulence  that  shook  this  scene  of  oblivion  and  of  death  ? 
Yes.  A  love  which  was  stamped  into  their  fierce,  rough 
natures  still  lived  and  warmed  them  like  a  sunbeam,  for¬ 
cing  itself  foremost,  even  into  this  terrible  qualm  reacting 
against  morality.  Not  a  ruthless  hand  was  laid  upon  her 
trembling  form.  Speechless  unanimity  prevailed  on  the 
question  of  sparing  her  life.  All  would  spare  and  protect 
a  faithful  friend.  On  consultation  Hermias,  one  of  her 
father’s  executioners,  wa^  chosen  leader  of  a  picked  band 
who  soon  after  performed  the  perilous  task  of  escorting 
her  safely  to  the  distant  city  of  Catana,  the  home  of  some 
relatives  near  the  sea. 

Wo  have  in  this  episode  another  instance  substantiat¬ 
ing  the  opinion  heretofore  expressed,  that  the  emotion  of 
sympathy  has  been  a  growth  in  the  breast  of  the  crushed 
and  humiliated  classes,  fledged  from  their  schools  of  mu¬ 
tual  love  or  commiseration  and  common  support.  Poor 
people  are  themselves  the  makers  of  most  of  the  sympa¬ 
thies  which  they  enjoy.  Even  the  daughter  of  Damoph- 
ilus  grew  in  sympathy  at  the  sight  of  misery.  However 
rude  the  crust  screening  from  view  our  inner  nature,  that 
nature  never  had,  under  Pagan  control,  much  sympathy 
allowed  it.  Sympathy  seems  clearly  to  have  been  a  growth 
out  of  a  vast  association  in  many  parts  of  ancient  Greek 
and  Roman  states  and  did  not  thrive  among  the  opulent. 
Concupiscence  with  its  cupidity  and  irascibility  were  the 
pillars  on  wiiich  rested  the  ancient  paganism  and  its  aged 
competitive  system ;  and  though  the  majorities  who  were 
of  the  working  class  possessed  enough  of  the  latter  in  its 
crudest  form,  yet  they  had  little  greed  or  avarice.  They 
in  fact,  developed  sentiments  of  a  reverse  nature.  They 
longed  for  a  socialism  that  would  breed  sympathy  with  its 
mutual  love  and  care.  Diodorus,  one  of  our  informants 
on  this  subject  of  the  slaves  of  Enna,  in  referring  to  their 
treatment  of  the  daughter  of  Damophilus  and  Megallis, 
says :  “These  slaves  on  strike  demonstrated,  in  showing 
no  sympathy  or  mercy  to  those  who  had  been  their  mas¬ 
ters  and  in  delivering  themselves  up  to  their  own  violence 
and  wrath,  that  what  they  did  was  not  the  mean  prompt- 


THE  ORDEAL  OF  VENGEANCE  ABATES.  207 


mgs  of  barbarity,  but  a  just  retribution  or  punishment  for 
the  injustice  which  had  been  done  to  them  ;”39  bold  words 
indeed,  but  just  and  true ;  and  the  student  of  sociology 
may  now  divine  the  reasons  why  that  brave  publicist  has 
lain  for  2,000  years  in  obloquy,  with  his  wonderful  tales 
and  descriptions  in  tatters  among  the  rubbish  of  the  vaults, 
or  later,  in  the  literary  sepulchres  of  the  Vatican. 

It  appears  that  this  theatre  which  had  been  the  scene 
of  the  fury  we  have  described  became  the  focus  of  delib¬ 
eration  after  the  frenzy  cf  their  vengeance  had  subsided 
and  the  more  serious  matters  connected  with  the  future 
began  to  force  themselves  upon  their  reflection.  They 
saw  that  as  soon  as  the  news  of  their  action  reached  Rome, 
the  scornful  power  which  for  ages  had  thrived  by  con¬ 
quest  and  its  booty  of  lands  and  slaves,  there  would  spring 
up  an  immense  army  to  suppress  them.  They  had  the  sa¬ 
gacity  to  foresee  that  their  only  hope  was  in  a  strong  army 
well  equipped  and  disciplined,  powerful  enough  to  cope, 
even  with  the  forces  of  Rome.  It  further  appears  from 
the  evidence  that  so  deep  had  been  the  foresight  and  so 
long  the  communings  on  this  matter,  so  secretly  had  the 
whole  uprising  been  concocted,  that  all  things  necessary 
to  this  resistance  were  well-nigh  prepared  beforehand; 
and  the  general  appearance  with  its  sequel  demonstrate 
that  the  central  idea  of  a  tumultuous  feast  of  blood  and 
dissipation  and  of  subsequent  demoralization  and  gluttony 
was  far  from  them.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  they 
had  already  determined  to  throw  down  the  slave  system 
of  which  they  were  victims  and  upon  its  ruins  build  up  a 
social  fabric  which  should  deal  equitably  and  humanely  by 
all.  To  one  acquainted  with  the  vast  and  inexhaustable 
power  of  Rome,  this  dream  of  the  poor  slave  socialists 
would  have  seemed  an  absurd  maohination  of  the  fancy. 
But  on  the  other  hand  they  were  on  an  island  with  whose 
rocky  cliffs,  caverns,  forests  and  by-paths  they  were  well 
acquainted.  They  wanted  to  build  up  a  kingdom  of  men 
and  women  emancipated  from  slavery  and  economic  want 
with  their  leader  Eunus,  on  the  throne.  They  held  good 
to  this  resolution. 

Eunus  was  elected  king. 40  It  does  not  appear  that  their 


w  Diod.  XXXIV.  iragment  ii.  39. 


Idem.  frag.  il.  14. 


208 


EUNUS. 


choice  of  him  was  on  account  of  any  military  tact  which 
he  had  shown  as  their  leader  nor  on  account  of  his  supe¬ 
rior  capacities  of  any  kind,  unless  it  was  that  of  working 
wonders.  This  however,  was  extremely  necessary  in  the 
mind  of  superstitious  men,  as  were  most  of  the  ancients, 
especially  the  laboring  class  who,  in  their  unions  among 
the  freedmen,  often  kept  a  sorcerer  who  knew  how  to  spit 
fire,  dawdle  with  the  little  oracles  and  pronounce  proph¬ 
ecies.  Even  the  rich  had  their  magi  or  fortune-tellers  and 
their  haruspices,  as  well  as  higher  priests  who  often  de¬ 
cided  the  turn  of  conquests  by  the  simple  consultation  of 
an  oracle.  Eunus  could  blow  fire,  tell  wonders,  pretend 
and  prophecy ;  and  Eunus  was  elected  king.  Again,  the 
name  Eunous ,  the  benificent,  was  considered  a  harbinger 
of  deeds  certain  to  bring  forth  good. 

King  Eunus,  on  receiving  his  crown,  rose  equal  to  the 
majesty  of  his  new  estate.  He  assumed  all  the  oriental 
bearing  of  kingly  dignity.  He  established  the  offices  of 
state  with  such  splendors  as  he  could  command.  There 
was  given  him  for  a  queen  a  female  slave  who  like  him¬ 
self,  hailed  from  Apamea  in  Syria — probably  old  play¬ 
mates.  Such  was  the  happy  one  to  be  raised  to  the  queen- 
ship.  To  crown  himself  in  still  more  royal  imitation  of 
the  dignities  of  his  fatherland  he  named  himself  Antioch. 

From  the  moment  Eunus  began  his  reign  he  appears 
to  have  been  successful.  Full  details  are  wanting.  From 
Cicero  we  have  hints41  that  the  temple  of  Ceres  or  Dem¬ 
eter  was  preserved  with  scrupulous  care,  as  well  as  all  the 
property  belonging  to  it.  No  doubt  however,  he  changed 
the  officers  of  the  temple  from  high  priests  to  vestal  vir¬ 
gins,  supplanting  the  old  by  a  choice  of  his  own  people. 

Biicher  thinks43  that  his  administration  from  first  to  last, 
considering  all  circumstances  peculiarly  connected  with 
the  character  and  notions  of  the  Semitic  and  Aryan  races 
with  whom  he  had  to  deal,  showed  more  than  usual  fit¬ 
ness.  He  understood  the  theory  of  government.  It  is 
certain  that  at  Enna  there  was  one  of  those  cavern  pris¬ 
ons,  such  as  had  been  dug  by  Dionysius  the  tyrant  at  Syr¬ 
acuse.  We  know  that  those  pestilential  subterranean 

41  Cicero,  Vtrrti .  iv.  50,  112 

u  Aufst.  S.  59:  “Melir  als  gewblinllche  Befahigung  Slefert.  18; 
‘Mau  wiihlte  ihu  zuin  kdnig  ....weil  er  den  Aufatand  begouuen  katte.* 


BUNU8  PROVES  TRUE  TO  HIS  WORD .  209 


dungeons  existed  in  great  numbers,  called  by  the  Romans 
ergastula ,  in  many  parts  of  Italy  and  Sicily.  They  were 
often  underground  workshops  like  the  quarries — the  hor¬ 
ror  of  the  ancient  slave.  Florus  and  Diodorus  combine  in 
the  statement  that  more  than  60,000  fighting  soldiers 
of  the  great  rebel  army  were  convicts  turned  loose  from 
these  prisons4*  during  the  war.  Eunus  incarcerated  a 
large  number  of  the  rich  in  the  holes  at  Enna  and  it  may 
be  presumed  that  the  old  prisoners  were  first  discharged 
to  give  room  for  the  new.  A  council  of  war  was  held  and 
it  was  decided  to  put  all  these  many  prisoners  to  death. 
This  was  the  result  of  a  mass  meeting  of  the  faithful  and 
unfaltering  to  Eunus,  as  a  forewarning  of  the  certain  re¬ 
sult  of  taking  part  in  any  effort  to  escape,  or  of  mixing 
and  intriguing  to  restore  the  old  government.  Few  of 
the  old  rule  people  were  left  alive  except  the  free  mechan¬ 
ics  who  could  make  arms ;  and  even  they  were  compelled 
to  work  in  fetters.  To  those  who  had  invited  Eunus  to  a 
seat  of  mock  honor  on  account  of  his  pretended  powers 
in  legerdemain  and  gifts  of  divination  at  their  sympo¬ 
siums  and  for  the  amusement  of  guests,  and  whom  he  had 
promised  their  lives  in  case  he  realized  his  heaven-offered 
kingdom,  he  held  good  his  word.  He  also  saved  them  their 
fortunes. 44  They  were  spared  by  a  royal  decree  and  the 
mandate  was  sent  them  in  true  regal  form.  He  also  saved 
the  temples  and  other  holy  property. 44 

At  length  Eunus  called  a  council  of  permanent  govern¬ 
ment.  First  of  all  was  chosen  Achseus.  “He  was,  in  a 
formal  manner  made  consiliarius  of  the  faithful. The 
ancient  author  who  leaves  us  these  choice  fragments  of 
history 44  suffixes  his  opinion  that  Eunus  in  making  choice 
of  him  as  lieutenant  and  counselor  general,  showed  won¬ 
derful  ability  and  prudence.  This  man  understood  and 
deeply  sympathized  with  the  Syrian  element  of  which 
the  slave  population  of  Enna  by  conquest  was  largely  com¬ 
posed.  But  he  was  moreover  endowed  with  extraordi 

«  Floras,  Epit.  Hist  Bom.  III.  19,  fi  8  ;  “Hoc  mlraculum  primurn  due 
millia  ex  obvlis,  mox  jure  belli  refractis  ergastulis.  sexaglnta  amplius  miilia 
fecit  exeroitum  ’’ 

44  Diod.  XXXIV.  frag,  li .  42  ;  “Twr  o\tov  fie  rots  awooraTau  na t auras 
rdpios.”;  Bftcher,  AufsU  S.  59;  Siefert,  Sklavenk.  S.  17. 

*&Cic.  Vtrr,  iv.  60,  112, 

*  Diod.  Id.  frag.  51.  42. 


210 


EVNUS, 


nary  wisdom  and  unscrupulous  will-power  in  expedients! 

where  emergencies  required  it.  He  was  capable  of  fear¬ 
lessly  organizing,  on  the  inspection  of  a  circumstance,  a 
resistance  powerful  enough  to  shatter  the  peril  whatever  it 
might  be  ;  and  he  had  the  judgment  and  force  of  char¬ 
acter  to  push  it  to  its  immediate  and  successful  results. 
He  was  bold  enough  to  plainly  tell  to  Eunus  his  misgiv¬ 
ings  and  impart  to  him  the  truth  ;  and  that  dignitary 
had  wisdom  and  a  sufficient  amount  of  common  sense  to 
hear  him  with  composure  and  acquiesce  in  his  views.  A 
perfect  agreement  was  the  result. 

Dr.  Bttcher  gives  it  as  his  opinion  that  Acheeus  was  one 
of  the  thousands  of  unfortunates  who  had  been  reduced  to 
slavery  through  the  Roman  conquest  of  Aohaia,  B.  C.146,  or 
about  3  years  before. 47  Achaia  being  in  the  heart  of  the 
Greek  Peninsula,  on  the  gulf  of  Corinth,  near  and  includ¬ 
ing  the  great  city  of  that  name,  was  of  purest  Greek;  and 
Greeks  in  those  days  were  mighty  men.  But  the  brutal 
fiat  of  Roman  conquest  had  recently  swept  over  the  whole 
Grecian  territory  and  buzzard-like,  swallowed  up  her  fa¬ 
mous  provinces  and  cities  and  sold  her  braves  into  slav¬ 
ery.  We  thus  find  circumstantial  evidence  that  Achaius 
had  the  sagacity,  acumen  and  intrepidity  of  his  race.  So 
well  pleased  was  the  slave-king  with  Achseus  that  he  made 
him  a  present  of  one  of  the  fine  houses  of  his  former 
millionaire  masters. 

The  success  of  the  great  insurrection  from  henceforth 
is  to  be  attributed  in  large  measure  to  Achseus,  general- 
in-chief.  In  three  days  he  had  armed  and  equipped  no 
less  than  6,000  soldiers  and  had  them  ready  for  the  ex¬ 
pected  armies  from  Rome  which  all  well  knew  would  soon 
arrive  by  forced  marches  to  put  down  the  rebellion.  As 
all  these  slaves  knew  the  awful  consequences  of  defeat,  we 
may  imagine  the  incentives  which  prompted  their  activity 
in  making  ready  for  coming  conflicts. 

The  outside  agricultural  places  soon  began  to  be  heard 
from.  They  consisted  of  heterogeneous  ranks — a  motly 
mass,  who,  rushing  from  their  work  on  hearing  the  news 
of  tile  revolt,  straggled  into  the  new  head-quarters  from 
far  and  near.  They  streamed  into  the  town,  each  with  t 


17  Au/st.  d.  unf.  Arb.  8.  60. 


&BQAN12IN&  THE  SOCIALIST  ARMY.  211 


butcher-knife,  an  axe,  a  sickle,  a  pitchfork  of  iron  or  wood. 
Slings  were  weapons  with  wnick  the  numerous  shepherds 
were  "best  practiced ;  and  they  knew  their  use  with  fatal 
effect.  Inspired  with  a  hope  of  liberty  at  any  price  or  ag¬ 
ony  of  effort,  they  were  ready  to  stake  their  lives  under 
perilous  odds  for  a  chance  at  winning  it. 

There  were  at  that  moment  no  troops  of  the  Roman  le¬ 
gions  in  Sicily.  The  only  immediate  forces  to  be  feared 
by  the  workingmen  were  the  militia  from  the  different 
cities.  There  had  occurred  no  dangerous  strikes  among 
the  slaves  for  many  years  here,  and  in  consequence,  Rome 
had  not,  as  in  Etruria,  on  the  Tarantine  gulf  and  else¬ 
where,  provided  a  standing  army  kept  stationary  under  a 
pnetor  for  the  express  purpose  of  suppressing  the  ever- 
recurring  rebellions  of  labor 48  which  wTere  not  only  in  this 
nation  troublesome  but  had  proved  themselves  at  Sparta 
and  Athens  a  great  source  of  danger.  Besides  this,  Rome 
was  busy  quelling  similar  disorders  nearer  home.  The 
only  available  force  at  hand  was  the  militia. 

Meanwhile  the  insurgents  were  recruiting  a  powerful 
force  by  tapping  every  resource  that  offered  a  promise  of 
strength.  Among  others,  as  already  noticed,  the  great 
cavern  jails  were  full. 48  All  through  the  country  these 
workhouses  whether  underground,  in  towns  or  out  on  the 
farms,  were  broken  into  and  emptied,  the  prisoners  ran¬ 
somed  and  those  able  to  bear  arms  welcomed  to  the  army 
of  resistance. 50  Our  principal  resource  whence  we  extract 
these  facts  is  Diodorus  Siculus,  who  wrote  elaborately  on 
the  subject,  often  giving  minute  details;  but  being  an  hon¬ 
est  man  and  writing  of  his  own  native  country,  committed 
what  in  his  times  seems  to  have  been  the  error — though  no 
fault  of  his  conscience — of  telling  the  truth.  We  in  conse¬ 
quence,  as  students  of  sociology  must  charge  against  that 
slave-holding  aristocrcy, 61  all  mutilation  of  his  history, 
especially  those  paragraphs  delineating  the  Roman  disaster 

«L1V.  XXTX.  17.  41,  XXXII.  26  XXXIII,  36. 

«®Diod.  XXXIV.  frag.  ii.  36  :  “Kai  tovtuv  touj  /xev  ir«?Sai?  dea/xtvui 

•if  raj  (rwepyaeriat  ive|ia\\e•},  Dauiophiius  had  algo  made  them  work  la  the 
fields  while  chained. 

6uL>iOd.  frag.  ii.  26  26. 

A  rimilar  outrage  has  been  committed  epon  Livy’s  history  ofSpar- 
tacuM  proved  by  the  ei'itomies  or  bn,  er  headings  XCV,  XCVJ.  &  XCVII 
which  have  survr  od  the  wreck  We  ive  further  details  Oi  th  s  disa&ui 
together  w  th  that  of  Sallust,  farther  on. 


212 


BUNU8. 


which  followed;  for  although  some  clauses  are  left  com¬ 
plete  others  are  bereft  of  their  treasures  of  priceless  infor¬ 
mation.  A  large  portion  of  the  details,  amounting  in  all,  to 
chapters,  has  apparently  been  sequestered  through  the  van¬ 
dalism  of  contemporaneous  censorship  and  the  inestimable 
manuscripts  disrupted  from  their  historical  chain  covering 
at  least  ten  years  of  this  eventful  rebellion  which  went  far 
toward  shaping  the  actions  of  men  and  preparing  the  world 
for  the  advent  of  a  different  culture. 

At  any  rate  we  have  a  statement  that  not  less  than  60,000 
prisoners  were  delivered  from  the  ergastula”  and  we  know 
that  these  also  joined  the  rebellion.  Everywhere  were 
the  slave-holders  murdered,  and  in  proportion  as  the  more 
desperate  ones  were  delivered  from  bondage  and  fetters,  the 
search  all  over  the  island  to  find  and  exterminate  them  be¬ 
came  more  industrious.  On  the  eastern  side  of  Sicily  were 
magnificent  fields  of  wheat  and  different  grains  and  a  large 
amount  of  pasture  lands  stocked  with  cattle  and  sheep  and 
bearing  prodigious  quantities  of  wine  and  olive  oil.  The 
slave  hordes  now  free,  swept  over  this  country,  murdering 
and  destroying  all  before  them,  notwithstanding  the  efforts 
of  Achseus  at  restraint.  The  story  of  Cambalus,  a  wealthy 
citizen  of  Morgantion  in  the  upper  districts  of  Symaethus, 
is  told6*  as  an  exception  to  the  usual  prudence  of  this  com¬ 
mander  :  This  nobleman  while  on  a  hunting  excursion  came 
across  a  band  of  these  prowlers.  Alarmed  at  his  close  prox¬ 
imity  to  the  dangerous  men  he  turned  and  ran  toward  the 
city,  following  the  high  road.  When  near  his  own  home 
he  met  his  father  on  horseback  going  toward  the  danger, 
who  immediately  dismounted  and  begged  the  son  to  mount 
and  save  himself  by  flight.  While  thus  in  filial  and  pater¬ 
nal-  love,  tarrying,  neither  deciding  to  take  to  flight,  the  free¬ 
booters  came  up  and  killed  them  both. 64  But  Achaeus  gen¬ 
erally  forbade  such  strong  measures.  Wherever  he  heard 

62  Florus,  Epit.  III.  15,  elsewhere  quoted. 

•^Manner!,  Oeog.  IX.  2;  Cato,  De  Re  Rustica.  ft;  Columella,  Dt  R* 
Ruztica  III.  2. 

MDr.  Bucher,  Anfstaade  der  unfreien  Arbeiter,  S.  61,  extracts  the  story  in 
full:  “Gorgos,  mit  dem  Beinahmen  Kambalos,  ©in  durch  seinen  Reichthum 
und  Edelmuth  bekannter  Burger  von  Morgantion  im  Gebiete  des  oberen  Sym- 
kthus  zog  auf  die  Jagd  aus  und  stiess  auf  eiue  Sklavenbande.  Er  floh  die  Strasse 
zur  ritadt  zuriick  und  begegnete  baldseiuem  Vater  der  zu  Pferdedes  Weges  kani 
Dieser  stieg  sofort  ab  und  flehte  den  Sohn  sein  Le  3n  zu  retten.  Der  Sohn  bin- 
wieder  den  Vater ;  und  wahrend  sie  so  in  dem  Wettstreite  kindlicher  Liebe  und 
vaterlicher  Zartlichkeit  sich  erschbpiten,  ersokienen  die  Anfrillier  und  er- 
echlugen  beide.” 


THE  TRAMPS  AND  FREEDMEN. 


213 


of  atrocities  committed  by  his  men  he  is  said  to  have  ex¬ 
erted  every  energy  to  prevent  their  recurrence,  appealing  to 
the  danger  should  the  Romans  gain  the  upper  hand.  The 
rebels  began  to  comprehend  that  something  nobler  than 
mere  rage  was  wanted.  They  soon  began  to  be  more  care¬ 
ful  of  the  stores  of  grain  and  other  necessaries.  They 
also  spared  a  large  number  of  the  small  cultivators  who 
had  not  been  active  in  injuring  them. 

There  were  also  great  numbers  of  freedmen,  now  little 
better  than  beggars;  for  as  most  farm  labor  since  the  new 
impetus  of  the  Roman  slave  system  had  set  in,  was  per¬ 
formed  by  slaves,  they  were  obliged  to  beg  because  they 
had  no  work.  These  wretched  tramps,  perceiving  their 
opportunity,  soon  began  to  organize  in  secrecy.  “  The 
great  war  now  raged  in  earnest.  The  new  force  of  beg¬ 
gars  who  hitherto  had  been  roaming  in  a  demoralized  con¬ 
dition  do  not  seem  to  have  done  credit  to  the  slaves;  for 
while  they  turned  their  hands  to  destruction  of  property 
and  delivered  themselves  up  to  gluttony,  their  faults  were 
all  laid  to  the  slaves.  By  this  circumstance  we  are  made 
aware  that  the  actual  status  of  intelligence  was  higher 
among  the  slave  population  than  the  tramps,  who  had  be¬ 
come  demoralized  and  degraded  through  discouragement 
and  suffering. 

It  was  a  long  time  before  the  Romans,  tormented  with 
the  terrible  struggles  of  the  proletaries  at  that  moment 
raging  in  Italy  over  the  agrarian  question,  could  awaken 
to  a  full  sense  of  the  situation.  There  was  certainly  some 
provincial  government  at  the  time,  for  mention  is  made  to 
the  effect  that  Roman  praetors 66  then  had  the  province  in 
charge;  but  they  were  both  too  much  enfeebled  by  their 
enormous  wealth  at  Syracuse  or  the  dissipation  concom¬ 
itant  to  it  and  by  their  being  practically  without  a  force 
sufficient  to  the  emergency.  The  insurrection  seems  not 
to  have  been  uniform  in  different  parts.  In  those  days  it 
took  some  time  for  slaves  to  communicate  with  each  other; 
and  when  that  was  accomplished  there  must  be  time  to 
ponder  over  the  dangerous  experiment  and  prepare  for 
action;  but  it  is  known  that  almost  everywhere  in,  and 

6?T)io(l.  XXXVI.  frag,  v.  speaking  of  the  second  war  (see  chapter  xi.) 
expressly  states  that  it  was  not  the  slaves  alone  but  also  freedmen.  So  alsr 
Floras  111  19:  Cum  libe  ris  (nelas  I)  etin^enuis,  cl  i  mica  turn  est.” 

u  jiii  ht-r.  Aujsi  S.  Gl-62. 


214 


EUNUS. 


close  about  the  cities,  the  uprising  was  general;  for  ev¬ 
erywhere  the  slaves  ran  away  from  their  masters  and  hur¬ 
ried  to  join  the  Ennian  army. 

Achaeus  in  a  short  time  found  himself  master  of  a  well 
equipped  army  of  10,000  men.  He  devoted  his  energies 
to  drilling  these  raw  troops  and  teaching  them  their  new 
business.  We  are  wanting  details  for  showing  the  exact 
dates,  but  the  events  of  which  we  speak,  according  to  the 
close  examination  of  all  material  by  Dr.  Biicher,  make  it 
between  B.  C.  143  and  140. 67  Repeated  skirmishing  took 
place  between  Achseus  and  the  advance  guards  of  the  Ro¬ 
man  prsetors  but  as  often  the  latter  were  totally  overthrown. 
Undoubtedly  many  great  and  terribly  bloody  battles  were 
fought. 88  Certainly  the  results  were  disastrous  to  the  Ro¬ 
mans;  for  tne  territory  of  Eunus’  kingdom  gradually  en¬ 
larged  stretching  over  upper  Symaethus  and  eastward  down 
to  the  sea.  It  also  struck  northward  and  extended  for  a 
considerable  distance  to  the  west.  But  we  hear  of  noth¬ 
ing  having  occurred  in  the  south,  up  to  this  point.6*  There 
was  however,  a  great  uprising  there,  soon  to  be  heard  of 
The  signal  successes  of  Aclneus  had  become  noised  abroad. 
Slaves  everywhere  were  waiting  for  a  leader.  A  new  and 
almost  distinct  strike  was  preparing  to  burst  forth  south¬ 
ward  near  the  coast,  among  the  productive  fields  and  pas¬ 
tures  long  celebrated  for  stock-breeding,  especially  that  of 
draft  animals  and  fine  horses.  Along  this  seaboard  no 
harbors  appear.  The  land  lies  in  plateaus,  with  precip¬ 
itous  steeps  overhanging  the  Mediterranean;  but  the 
levels  above  and  the  occasional  valleys,  are  exceedingly 
fruitful. 60  It  was  the  celebrated  Agrigentum.  Along  the 
southern  coast  of  Sicily  at  that  time  few  inhabitants  ex¬ 
isted.  The  old  places  which  had  once  been  occupied  by 
the  colonists  from  Megara  and  Rhodes  had  been  long  de¬ 
populated. 

Acragus,  well  remembered  by  the  Romans  as  having 

67  idem, ,  Excurt,  “liber  die  Chronologic  des  s.cilischen  Bclarenkriege  und 
Verwnndtog  ”  S  121-129.  Here  Biicher  gives  data  (which  we  follow.)  show, 
ing  that  it  must  have  been  B  C  143-140  or  the  first  two  yean  before  the 
army  of  Achseus  amounted  to  10,000  men. 

m D tod.  XXXIV,  frag.  ii.  Dind. 

6°  Biiclrfcr,  Aufot  S.  62.  We  mostly  follow  Bucher's  admirable  tracing* 
of  the  \  ar  from  this  point. 

6u  Strabo,  Gtog.  VI.;  Cicero.  Verr  II.  i.  28 ;  D'OroiUe,  Stcula.  p,  289 
Plin.  B.  Ar.  VIII.  64. 


CLEON. 


215 


withstood,  during  the  Punic  wars  all  those  terrible  vicissi¬ 
tudes  and  had  long  been  inured  to  hardships,  still  main¬ 
tained  itself  and  a  good  share  of  its  population.  It  was 
a  rich  portion  of  the  island  and  large  numbers  of  the  land 
owners  possessed  and  exploited  slaves  who  became  so  nu¬ 
merous  that  they  performed  all  the  labor  leaving  none  for 
the  freedmen  who  were  thus  reduced  to  the  condition  of 
roaming  tramps  and  beggars.  Some  men  owned  500 61  in 
the  earlier  days  and  there  still  existed  very  rich  men  in  the 
city,  holding  large  portions  of  land  and  many  human  crea¬ 
tures  as  chattels.  Here  w  as  the  seat  of  a  recorded  instance 
of  the  prevailing  cruelties:  One  Polias,  having  invited  to 
dinner  an  equally  heartless  slaveholder,  who  was  unwill¬ 
ing  to  allow  his  slaves  rest  long  enough  to  sleep,  called  to¬ 
gether  his  own,  especially  the  women  and  children,  and  like 
the  animals,  fed  them  nuts  and  dried  figs — the  only  nour¬ 
ishment  they  were  allowed  for  supper.6* 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  then,  if  the  slaves  whenever 
opportunity  offered,  ran  away  from  such  masters  and  some¬ 
times  became  cunning  and  dangerous  brigands. 

Another  desperate  character  of  this  war  was  Cleon,  called 
in  Livy,  “Gleon,”  a  Cilician  by  birth, 65  from  the  town  of 
Comana  in  the  Taurian  region  of  southern  Asia  Minor.  It 
appears  that  he  and  his  brother,  called  “Coma”  by  Valerius 
Maximus  in  his  Memorabilia ,M  were  runaway  slaves  who, 
having  betaken  themselves  to  the  mountains  drove  a  maraud¬ 
ing  business  in  the  general  interest  of  their  fellows  still  in 
bonds.  Here  they  plied  the  arts  of  the  latrocinia  or  high¬ 
way  robbery,  and  stood  ready  to  espouse  the  rebellion  of 
Eunus  which  was  now  creeping  toward  their  confines.  An¬ 
other  theory  of  Cleon  is  that  like  Spartacus,  he  had  else¬ 
where  learned  to  be  a  robber  but  had  been  seized  by  a  Sicil- 

•i  Slefert,  Sidlische  Sklavcnkrieat.  S.  88. 

«Stob®us,  Floril,  LX1I.  48;  Cf.  Blldier.  84. 

«» !u  hit  note  2.  S.  64.  Dr.  Bttoher  re  era  to  Cleon’s  birthplace,  u  follows 
**D)Od.  fr.  2,  43:  i\  r wv  nepi  rov  T aOpov  tottwi/.  Nach  8  20  hies*  geinBra- 
der  Komnnoa  (Coma  bei  Valer.  Max.  IX,  12,  lext.  istofl'enbareinSchrelb- 
febler  statt  Comanus),  woraus  mit  zlemlicher  Sicherl'eit  zu  schiessen, 
dat*a  Komana  die  Vaterstadt  der  beiden  Brlider  war.  Ob  aber  an  die 
paniphylieclie  Oder  on  die  kappadokiche  Stadt  dieses  Namens  in  denken 
»ui.  raus*  neentschieilen  gelassen  werden.  I,et2tere,  inmitten  dee  Anti- 
tauros  am  Saros  gelegen.  war  eine  Ilaupslatte  dcs  den  eyrisehen  Diene- 
i.en  ve>wandtin  C"!tus  der  Ma  (Artemis  Taurfea)  Strabo  XII.  p.  585;  man 
winds  drum  den  Beweggrund  (ur  dtn  raschen  Anschlus-  Kieons  an  E« 
uu9  >n  *•  ligibser  Superstition  zu  «uclien  hahvn 

MJU.od  XXXIV.  frag.  il.  20  &  43, ;  Valerius  Maxumis,  IX.  1-;  Sleb  n.  lfc 


EUNUS* 


nt 

ian  corsair  and  brought  over  to  this  place  where  he  was  sold 
in  slavery  and  set  to  work  herding  horses  in  the  pastures, 
whence  he  escaped  and  made  himself  the  terror  of  the  re¬ 
gion,  playing  his  old  pranks  with  success.  But  this  theory 
fails  to  account  for  his  brother. 

By  some  means  Cleon,  who  had  a  strong  band  ever  on 
the  alert,  heard  of  the  great  movement  of  Eunus  at  Enna. 
The  distance  was  certainly  not  so  great  but  that  they  could 
have  held  correspondence ;  especially  after  the  forces  of 
Acheeus  had,  by  victory  after  victory  over  the  praetorian 
militia,  cleared  the  obstacles  away. 

Cleon  on  hearing  the  particulars  of  the  insurrection, 
ran  up  the  flag  of  open  rebellion  and  offered  freedom  to 
all  slaves  who  should  espouse  his  cause.  The  mighty 
name  he  had  already  won  went  far  toward  deciding  in¬ 
numerable  slaves.  Everywhere  these  Agrigentine  bonds¬ 
men  responded  to  the  shrill  bugles  of  Cleon.  As  fast  as 
they  came  into  camp  he  armed  and  drilled  them  for  ser¬ 
vice.  Battles  must  have  followed  for  we  find  him  in  pos¬ 
session  of  the  city.  The  two  most  powerful  captains  of 
the  rebellion  now  stood  over-against  each  other,  both  hav¬ 
ing  won  battles,  undoubtedly  important  ones;  for  as  our 
details  are  missing  and  the  leading  points  preserved,  we 
are  left  to  our  imagination  in  making  up  the  links  in  the 
chain  of  history.  It  was  now  the  hope  of  the  rich  own¬ 
ers  that  these  rough  commanders  would,  though  at  first 
victorious,  soon  have  a  falling  out ;  that  jealousy  would 
prove  a  quicker  means  of  ridding  them  of  their  now  ter¬ 
rible  enemy  than  their  own  opposition ;  for  such  were  the 
proportions  of  this  uprising  that  Cleon  soon  counted  up¬ 
wards  of  70,000  men. 86  With  such  an  army  it  was  reason¬ 
ably  conjectured  that  he  would  not  long  submit  to  a  sub¬ 
ordinate  position  under  Eunus.  Bucher  in  assuring  us 
that  the  reverse  was  the  case,  “  suggests  that  the  cause 
of  the  perfect  harmony  known  to  have  existed  may  have 
been  Cleon’s  superstitious  faith  in  the  infallibilty  of  Eunus 
as  a  mediator  for  poor  humanity  between  God  and  man  ; 

•*Livy,  LVL  ”C.  Fulvio  Consul!  mandatum  eet,  hajus  belli  lnttium 
fait  Eunas  eervu?,  nation©  Syru9 ;  qui  contracts  ^grestium  servorum  man* 
et  solutis  ergastulis  justi  exerctus  numerum  implevit.  Gleon  quoque,  altef 
eervus,  ad  septuaginta  millia  servorum  contraxit ,  ot  oopiis  junotis  advsr- 
bus  populi  Romani  exercitum  bellum  s»pe  gtesermnt.” 

WBiicher,  Aufst,  S.  65. 


CLEON'S  SEVENTY  THOUSAND.  COALITION  tlf 


it  being  fully  believed  that  he  was  a  Messiah. 67  This 
might  have  done  much,  but  the  fact  that  they  knew  that 
in  the  absence  of  perfect  harmony  their  own  lives  would 
certainly  be  speedily  lost,  together  with  their  cause,  is  the 
more  probable  solution  to  this  problem.  Cleon  accepted  a 
position  of  what,  in  our  military  terms,  may  be  called  a 
brigadier,  general,  of  the  grand  army  under  Eunus,  or  ra¬ 
ther  under  Achseus,  lieutenant-general  to  Eunus ;  and  the 
force  assigned  him  was  only  5,000  men. 

The  two  armies  of  the  great  mutiny  against  capital  be¬ 
came  thus  consolidated  into  one.  It  is  stated  by  Livy 
that  in  Agrigentum  alone  there  were  70,000  men  under 
arms;**  and  we  have  seen  that  Achseus  already  had  a 
large,  victorious  force.  Thus  the  combined  armies  stead¬ 
ily  grew  in  numbers  and  discipline.  This  immense  force 
was  divided  up  between  many  leaders  ;  Eunus  being  the 
commander-in-chief  with  Achseus  and  soon  afterwards  Cle¬ 
on,  the  two  principal  lieutenants. 

The  armies  stretched  from  Enna  to  Agrigentum  and  a 
wing  extended  south  and  eastward  to  the  sea — perhaps  as 
far  eastward  as  Syracuse.  Soon  after  these  arrangements 
were  accomplished  the  new  prsetor  arrived  in  Sicily  with 
an  army  of  well  equipped  Roman  soldiers  consisting  of 
8,000  men.  How  many  stragglers  of  those  demoralized 
forces  whom  Achseus  had  often  punished  and  dispersed, 
came  to  swell  the  freshly  landed  army  of  this  prsetor,  L. 
Plautius  Hypsseus,68  does  not  appear.  But  Dr.  Siefert, 
on  the  strength  of  a  statement  of  a  fragment,  says  that  no 
regular  troops  accompanied  Hypsaeus  from  Rome. 

Hostilities  south  now  became  general.  The  Roman  did 
not  have  long  to  wait.  A  force  of  20,000  slaves  probably 
of  both  Achseus  and  Cleon  met  him,  fully  inspired  with 
the  supernatural  powers  of  their  fire-spitting  king,  as  well 
as  burning  with  old  hatred  and  a  desire  to  settle  accounts 
with  their  enemies.  A  great  battle  was  fought.  Hyp- 
sseus  was  utterly  routed  and  ruined;  and  the  rebels  were 
left  masters  of  the  field. 

«t  Floras,  III.  19,  4  s  *’Syrus  quldam  nomine  Eunus  fanatico  furore 
aimulaio  dum  Syriwdeaa  comas  jactat,  ad  libertatem  et  arraas  serros,  quasi 
nnmerum  mperium  concitavit;  idque  lit  divinitus  fieri  probaret.  In  ore 
abdita  nuce,  quam  sulphure  et  igno  stipaverat,  icniter  inspirans,  flam  main 
fundebat.” 

•8Liv.  LVI.  EpU.  ad  Jin.:  See  quotation  id  note  65. 

«»Diod.  frag,  ii .  18.  This  >3  probably  a  remnant  of  a  full  statement 
to  mostly  lost. 


218 


EUNUS. 


The  news  of  this  additional  victory  spread  rapidly  and 
those  slaves  who  had  hitherto  hesitated,  now  flocked  to  the 
insurgent  army,  soon  swelling  it  to  the  almost  incredible 
magnitude  of  200,000  men.  The  language  of  our  infor¬ 
mation  is,  however,  too  assuring  towarrant  us  in  dallying 
over  doubts ;  for  not  only  do  the  ancient  authorities  give 
these  figures  but  we  also  find  the  strong  reinforcement  of 
the  modern  philological  critics  who  make  no  hesitation  in 
pronouncing  it  to  be  true.  ”  The  people  at  Rome  enter¬ 
tained  hopes  that  the  force  under  Hypsseus  would  be  of 
sufficient  strength  to  put  down  the  rebellion ;  but  as  time 
wore  by,  straggling  remnants  of  the  shattered  army  ver¬ 
ified  a  dismal  fear  that  great  disasters  had  befallen  them ; 
otherwise  the  gloomy  news  of  the  expedition  was  lost. 

Other  expeditions  soon  followed  the  sad  one  just  men¬ 
tioned.  As  we  know  that  in  a  similar  rebellion  by  Sparta* 
cus  some  70  years  later,  the  armies  of  Rome  were  large, 
so  in  reason,  we  cannot  imagine  them  to  have  been  small 
in  Sicily.  Time  and  other  despoilers  have  deprived  us,  it 
is  true,  of  many  details,  in  histories  we  know  to  have  been 
written.  But  enough  remains  to  attest  the  enormous  pro¬ 
portions  of  the  Sicilian  labor  rebellion  and  the  success  that 
everywhere  attended  the  arms  of  the  workingmen.  C. 
Fulvius  Flaccus,  consul,  appears  next  to  have  come  to  the 
scene ;  his  colleague  Scipio  Africanus  going  to  Numantia. 
This  commander  was  however,  preceded  by  a  certain  Man¬ 
lius,  mentioned  in  the  fragments  of  Diodorus  referred  to. 
He,  like  his  predecessors  was  annihilated.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  this  word  applies  here  in  its  literal  sense. 
So  complete  was  the  extinction  that  scarcely  a  human  be¬ 
ing  ever  returned  to  convey  intelligence  of  the  disaster  to 
Rome.  Then  followed  Lentulus,  afterwards  Piso  and  Ru- 
pillius.  Whenever  the  Romans  gained  an  advantage  by 
dint  of  superior  military  skill  they  lost  it  through  the  over¬ 
whelming  and  ever  increasing  numbers  of  the  slaves,  who 
in  addition  to  their  own  manufacture  of  arms  and  muni¬ 
tions  of  war  which  they  forced  the  freedmen-mechanics  n 
of  Sicily  to  accomplish  for  them,  turned  all  the  splen- 

it  Bil  *h  S.  65  :  ’’Bald  betrog  B'ti  eregen  20o,ooo  Leute also  S.  12fl- 
"Nicht  lanpe  nachher  beiauft  e!ch  die  Zahl  der  Anfstandlachen  ins  STOPPryi  it  t, 
Boldaten.  senaennranner,  and  Un^erustote,  aui'  200,000,  ‘and  in  vieien  Krie- 
gon  k  amp  fen  &ie  irU'.ckKh.  m*1  tenor  crieiden  sic  Niederlagen.’ >’ 


THE  FEROCIOUS  NECESSITY 


&19 


did  weapons  wrested  from  the  defeated  warriors  of  the 
Roman  nobility  to  their  own  uses  and  grew  invincible.78 

No  prisoners  were  spared.  Eunus  had  undoubtedly  re¬ 
solved  upon  this  plan  from  the  first.  He  killed  Antigenes 
his  owner,  also  Python,  with  his  own  hand,  both  of  whom 
he  had  promised  a  “cheap  deal,”  and  spared  the  friends  of 
the  festivities  as  we  have  related,  only  as  a  mater  of  faith 
with  his  word.  He  had  opened  all  the  dungeons  of  the 
ergastula  which  confined  many  who  labored  in  those  grot¬ 
toes.  What  more  could  they  want  of  those  disgusting 
holes?  No.  With  them  there  was  no  lingering  prisoner. 
To  be  taken  prisoner  was  to  die — a  ferocious  necessity! 
Besides  these  barbarous  economics,  they  possessed  the 
remarkable  negligence  of  the  Romans  which  had  struck 
into  Sicily  at  the  time  of  the  defeat  and  final  evacuation 
of  the  island  by  the  Carthagenians,  in  B.  C.  210.  Every¬ 
where  the  walls  of  cities  and  other  fortified  places  were 
battered  down,  and  left  mouldering  in  disuse  and  every¬ 

where  was  found  unhindered  admission  to  the  cities,  the 
storehouses  and  the  citadels.73  Much  of  the  success  of  their 
phenomenal  marches  was  attributed  to  the  supernatural  pow¬ 
ers  of  king  Eunus. 

They  believed  themselves  invincible ;  and  as  time  wore 
on,  year  after  year  of  undiminished  prosperity  apparently 
fortified  this  belief.  Eunus  once  led  his  victorious  forces 
before  one  of  the  few  fortified  places  that  attempetd  to 

withstand  him  and  to  the  besieged  inhabitants  spoke  with 
bitter  irony,  denying  that  he  was  even  the  cause  of  the 
trouble,  or  his  men  in  rebellion.  On  the  contrary,  they 

themselves  by  their  former  atrocities,  had  driven  them  to 
a  compulsory  step  which  they  little  desired  to  take.  In 
full  consciousness  of  their  enemy’s  helplessness  and  the 
stinging  remembrance  of  their  former  sufferings,  they 
made  a  great  show  of  their  triumphs,  parading  the  now 

emancipated  revolutionists  in  pompous  formality  and  for- 

71  This  fact  must  be  considered  as  applying  to  a  certain 
number  of  freedmen  denominated  by  the  modern  labor  organi¬ 
zations  Scabs,  who  had  made  themselves  obnoxious  by  an  obse¬ 
quious  catering  to  masters;  for  we  find  that  a  few  years  later 
(see  Athenion,  chapter  x.)  there  were  great  numbers  of  free 
artisans  who  espoused  the  cause  of  the  slaves  and  took  up 
arms  gladly  in  the  defense  of  a  common  cause. 

72Bucher,  Aufst.  S.  66  “Wurde  auch  einen  kleinen  Erfolg 
errungen  im  nachsten  Augenblicke  raffte  sich  der  Aufstand 
mit  doppeltor  Wuth  zusamen  and  drang  unaufhaltsam  und 
grausam,  wie  alle  socialeu  Kriege,  weiter.” 

78Consult  Diod.  XXXIV.  frag  ii.  45. 


BUNUS. 


cing  the  reluctant  to  hear  the  history  of  the  causes  of  it, u 
through  mock  theatrical  representations  in  mimic  compo¬ 
sition,  as  was  practiced  in  Syria  the  fatherland  of  Eunus. 
This  practice  referred  to  by  Diodorus, 75  no  doubt  has  ref¬ 
erence  to  the  great  labor  unions  called  the  eranoi,  or  bet¬ 
ter,  their  branch,  the  thiasoi, 78  a  part  of  whose  duty  was 
to  provide  entertainment  for  the  members.  It  is  known 
that  mimic  entertainments  of  a  histrionic  character  were 
frequently  among  the  programs  of  amusement.  “There 
was”  says  Dr.  Biicher,  “more  than  one  bitter  drop  spilled 
into  the  bowl  of  misery  at  such  seiges;  since  overturned 
riches,  unbridled  rapine,  purposeless  power,  appeared  to 
gentlemen  to  be  the  cause  of  tneir  destruction ;  it  was 
in  fact,  a  practical  lesson  against  the  will  of  these  compul¬ 
sory  listeners  to  mimic  tragedies,  which,  like  every  other 
lesson  where  the  spirit  is  against  its  learning,  is  fruitless 
and  unheeded.” 77 

The  bitter  and  bloody  conflict  of  this  great  mutiny  of 
the  working  people  of  Sicily  had  now  been  raging  about 
6  years  with  the  prophet  of  Antioch  at  its  head.  The  mil¬ 
itary  force  of  Rome  such  as  she  could  spare,  had  been  ex¬ 
hausted  again  and  again  in  efforts  to  regain  her  foothold 
in  Sicily,  but  in  vain.  The  slaves  were  at  last  masters  of 
the  island.  Here,  by  a  most  fortunate  circumstance,  the 
lacerated  history  of  Diodorus  remains  so  unbroken  in  this 
particular  link  as  to  explicitly  transmit  this  truth;  and  in 
words  which  cannot  well  be  misunderstood. 78  Diodorus, 
though  his  veracity  has  long  lain  in  abeyance,  has  outlived 
his  calumniators,  and  great  savants,  having  proved  the 
truth  of  statements  by  his  pen  which  for  many  centuries 
lay  in  ridicule,  are  now  searching  for  them  as  being  those 
most  valuable  in  critical  use. 

Besides  the  cities  mentioned,  there  were  many  on  the 
east  coast  of  the  island  which  also,  one  by  one,  joined  the 
army  of  the  revolutionists.  Some  of  them,  it  is  known, 
were  taken  by  force.  Others  offered  themselves  to  the 
conquerors,  partly  through  their  own  wish,  partly  from  a 

T<  Id.  frag.  li.  ™Id.  84. 

See  Lildera,  Die  Dionys.  K&nttXer,  Tafeln  I-IL  Also  Infra,  chap.  xvli. 

D  Aufut.  d.  unfueien  A.i belter,  S.  67. 

w  Diod.  XXXlV.  frag.  11.  §  26,  “OvSenore  iyevtro  avrif  SovAwv 

^Ack>7  avvia ttj  ev  T7)  2U<eAi'(j,  Si  r)v  jroAAal  p.iv  7roAeis  Seivais  nepiintaov  <rv/u<£opais, 
ivapt'0/xrjrot  Se  'avSpe?  Kai  yvvauce?  p. era.  rinvwv  iireipaOrjaav  rwv  /ieyi'orwv  a- 
rv\r\p.iri»v,  natra  St  i)  tnjiroe  imvSvvevcr »  ir*<relv  tit  i(ov<rtav  SpairerUap-'1 


ALL  SICILY  CAPTURED  BY  THE  SLAVES. 


dread  of  sack  and  pillage.  w  Among  these  were  Tauro- 
manion  and  Catana,  the  place  of  refuge  for  the  daughter 
of  Damophilus  and  Megallis.  As  to  Syracuse, 80  the  great 
and  long  celebrated  capital  of  Sicily,  seat  of  the  former 
proud  tyrants,  home  of  Dion,  Plato's  friend,  and  center 
of  the  mechanical  sciences  of  Archimides,  the  city  whose 
hills  were  quarried  and  pierced  into  horrid  dungeons — the 
suffocating  latomies,  where  workingmen  by  thousands,  un¬ 
comforted  and  forgotten,  had  worked  and  smothered  for 
painful  centuries  to  the  delight  of  monsters  such  as  Di¬ 
onysius  ; — as  to  this  formidable  theatre  of  the  lapicidinae , 
we  are  so  far  informed  as  to  be  able  to  say  with  a  degree 
of  certainty,  that  also  this  haughty  mistress  of  the  Med¬ 
iterranean  fell  before  the  rebel  arms. 81 

Messana  to  the  north,  had  been  least  abusive  to  these 
people  when  in  bondage,  and  in  consequence  was  spared. 
Yet  even  Messana  made  a  strong  resistance  ;  for  situated 
on  the  strait  separating  Sicily  from  Italy,  an  important 
pivotal  position  by  being  almost  as  much  Italian  as  Sicil¬ 
ian,  it  at  last  gave  way. w 

The  capture  of  this  important  seaport  and  stronghold 
was  the  immediate  cause  of  the  uprising  or  strike  of  the 
slaves  and  other  working  people,  in  large  numbers,  over 
on  the  Italian  side,  of  which  we  give  an  account  in  another 
place.  “ 

Strabo.  Q*og.  VI;  Diod.  frag.  il.  20,  Orosius,  V.  9. 

wFrom  Diodorus  we  have  one  tattered  fragment  (ii.  9.)  which  makes 
it  probable  that  Syracuse  also  fell  into  the  rebels*  grasp. 

81  Elsewhere  we  have  endeavored  to  show  that  there  existed  some  un¬ 
explained  reason  for  Plato’s  strange  experience  among  the  fishermen  of 
Syracuse  and  the  motives  of  Dionysius  in  banishing  him  thither.  P.ato  was 
hated  by  the  workingmen.  The  fishermen  among  whom  he  was  relegated 
certainly  were  organized;  and  they  were  in  sympathy  with  the  mercenary 
sold  ers  on  strike  because  Dionysius  reduced  their  pay.  We  herewith  re¬ 
produce  the  words  of  Dr.  Bticher  in  his  text  pp.  66-9  and  footnote  4  :  “Eunu3 
war  zuletz  fast  Herr  der  ganzen  Insel  geworden  *  *  *  wahrscheinlich  selbst  Sy  ra- 
kus  &C.  Diod.  frag.  9:  Tols  Kara(f>ayovai  rovf  'tepw/aeVov?  ix#6s  ovk  yr  vrxuAa 
fiv  KOKtav.  t6  yap  Satpovior  wmp  ijrtTTjies  etc  napa.Seiytxo.Ticrp.bi'  to!?  aAAoi? 
ii ravras  rows  airovevor\p.evovT  irtpielSev  a/SorjjTjrov?.  ovrot  p.ev  ovv  aicoAov&uis  rfj 
wapa  deuv  KoAaarei  k at  rljs  ita  Trp;  tcrropta?  /3Aa<r<f>T)/uuas  TeTevxore?  airekavrrav 
Tij?  it xatas  eiriTi/mjaews.  Das  Bruchstuck  gehort  hierher  schon  wegen  <  er  in 
eemer  Nachbarsctiaft  stehenden  i'ragm.  der  Exc.  vatic.,  welcne  sammt- 
lich  auf  den  Sklavenkrieg  B6zug  haben.  Beiden  “hexliegn  Fisnen"  kaiin 
nur  an  die  der  Arethusa  anf  Ortnygi*  gedacht  werden.  von  welchen  Diod. 
V,  3  Fol^endes  erzahlt:  ravryv  (Tri*  ’Api&ovaav)  ov  p.6vov  Kara  rovs  ap\aiovt 
Xpovov s  e\eiv  fieyakovt  *at  jtoAAou?  ixi>0«,  akka  tea t  Kara  ti\v  ^peripav  riktKlav 
<Tvp.fSai.vei  Siapertiv  TOVTOVf,  'tepovs  ovrat  Kai  adiKTOu?  avJpcoiroi?.  ef  w»  iroAAa/cc? 
TLVtav  Kara  Ta?  rroAepuKa?  irepioTaaev;  'payoi'TUi'.  irapadogias  eireorjp-qvi  to  tieiov 
«ai  peyaAais  avpifiopais  irepiefSaAeio  Toy?  roApijo avras  npoatvsynaadai.  wept  Stf 
aKpti Sou?  avaypa\ljopev  iv  too?  oiKeiot?  XP®^01? 

b2  Or  os  i  us,  JFHstoriurum  Libri  Adverjtus  Faganos,  V.  6,  9;  Julias  Ob*» 
quens,  Dt  Piodigii^  I.  1.  81  Consult  chapter  lx.  Infra, 


EUNUS . 


222 

The  terrible  scuffle  into  which  Rome  was  drawn,  during 
these  momentous  times,  together  with  the  murder  of  Ti¬ 
berius  Gracchus,84  in  B.  C.  133,  show  how  this  mighty  peo¬ 
ple  were  paralyzed  by  the  labor  problem  of  that  century. 
But  with  the  death  of  this  powerful  tribune  and  faithful 
friend  of  the  poor,  the  fortunes  of  the  victorious  Eunus 
crumbled.  The  real  but  hidden  cause  of  the  compara¬ 
tively  unobstructed  career  which  had  now  held  him  king 
of  Sicily  fully  10  years,  was  probably  not  Rome’s  inability 
to  cope  with  him  in  military  force  and  tactics ;  it  was  her 
social  and  political  demoralization.  It  was  an  interreg¬ 
num  of  wills; — whether  paganism  should  continue  its  reck¬ 
less  course  against  nature,  against  justice,  against  human 
development,  and  cover  the  earth  with  slaves,  or  whether 
a  revolution  against  it  should,  in  defiance  of  its  haughty 
and  despotic  predilections  and  unbridled  greed,  be  sub¬ 
mitted  to.  When  we  look  back  at  the  astonishing  con¬ 
quest  of  Eunus  and  of  his  generals  and  men  from  this 
point  of  view  we  shall  see  the  waves  of  the  phenomena  of 
Rome’s  final  downfall  then  and  there  begun,  roll  back, 
together  with  many  another  dark  political  obscurity. 

Gracchus  was  not  yet  dead,  but  still  in  the  vortex  of 
his  anti-slavery  land  agitation,  spurred  on  by  Blossius  his 
devoted  friend.  C.  Calpurnius  Piso  was  one  of  the  con¬ 
suls  chosen  for  that  year.  On  him  devolved  the  command 
in  Sicily.  He  arrived  at  Messana  with  a  large  force  and 
finding  it  in  possession  of  the  slaves,  laid  siege  to  the  city. 
After  a  severe  storming  the  place  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  Romans.  As  many  as  8,000  slaves  were  slain  and  the 
prisoners  captured  were  all  crucified.  Piso  w  as  a  man  of 
much  nerve  and  business  energy,  combined  with  judg- 

M  Plutarch.  Tib.  Gracchus,  9-14;  Appian,  De  Beilis  Civilibus,  lib.  I.  9: 
‘M^pi  TcjSe'pio?  Sepwpwvios  rpa/cxos,  avrjp  em.<f)avr)s,  /cal  Aapn-po?  «  <£iAoTipi'av, 
•liretv  re  fiurarwr aros,  /cal  e/c  Twvbe  op. ov  wav roiv  yrtopipciraTOs  awacri  Si)papx<bv, 
i<repvo\oyt](xe  wepl  tov  ’iTaAi/cov  yevovs,  ws  evwoAepa/TaTov  re  /cal  avyyevovs,  (ptJeipo- 
pevov  Se  tear  oAlyov  if  anopiav  /cal  oAiyavbplav,  /cal  ovSe  eAwt’Sa  exovTos  e?  Stop- 
tftocriv.  ’Ewl  be  r<p  Sov\lk<2  Svax^pa-vas,  tbs  acrrparevriM,  /cal  ovnore  e?  Seanorai  ir<.$rui, 
to  evay^o?  ew/jvey/cev  iv  2i/ceyl<y  SeanoTu>v  iraOos  iiiro  Oepanovruiv  yevopevov ,  rj >>£>)- 
peviov  /ca/cetvu>v  awo  yewpylas.  /cal  tov  en’  avrov<!  ‘Pupaitov  woAepov,  ov  pu.bi.ov, 
ovSe  Ppa.\vv,  aAA’ es  Te  prj/cos  XP®*'01’*  K0Ll  Tpowas  /civSvva/v  woi/clAas  e/cTpawc./ ra, 
TauTa  Se  li niov,  ave/catvi^e  tov  vopov*  Mr/Seva  twv  wevTa/cosuov  jrAtPpa/v  /rAfoi 
ixetv.  Uaial  S’  avTtbv,  virep  tov  waAaiov  vopov  npocreriftei  ra  rjpiata.  vovtujv’  kou  rrjv 
Aotwijv,  t ptlv  aiperovi  avSpvi,  evaWaacropevovs  icixr’ cros,  Siavepeiv  voic  irevnon*” 
Wordsworth.  Fragments  of  Early  Larin.  p.  221.  We  have  in  the  preceding 
chapter,  giving  an  account  of  the  preat  epedemic  of  strikes  and  u;  risings 
which  were  occurring  almost  everywhere  in  the  Roman  territory,  caused 
entirely  by  a  profound  atul  lionesl  dissatisfaction  amo:  g  the  laboring  i  eoplo. 


TIBERIUS  SEMPR0N1US  GRACCHUS. 


22;l 

men  t  In  addition  to  this,  he  must  have  had  a  large  army. 
All  we  possess  of  the  facts  are  hints  touching  the  main 
events ;  the  particulars  are  left  to  be  drawn  by  inference. 
Certain  it  is  that  his  force  was  large  enough  to  assure  him 
in  the  bold  adventure  of  attacking  Enna ;  and  judging  by 
comparison  with  the  magnitude  of  the  Roman  armies  af¬ 
terwards  sent  to  subdue  Spartacus,  *R  he  could  not  have 
had  fewer  than  75,000  or  100,000  men.  Considering  the 
results  positively  known,  it  may7  be  no  boldness  to  pre¬ 
sume  that  his  army  was  at  least  80,000  strong. 

The  insurrectionary  armies  on  the  other  hand,  were, 
without  doubt,  greatly  demoralized  by  their  hitherto  un¬ 
failing  successes.  They  were  now  no  longer  slaves,  but  a 
host  of  ignorant  and  superstitious  freedmen  regaling  un¬ 
hindered  in  wantonness  and  luxury,  having  had  10  years 
of  security,  constantly  under  the  delusion  that  king  Eu- 
nus,  if  not  himself  an  immortal,  was  at  least  in  daily  inter¬ 
course  with  Ceres,  whom  nobody  dared  imagine  to  be  less 
than  the  powerful  protecting  goddess  of  that  island. 
Thus  fortified  in  delusions  confirmed,  they  had  in  course  of 
these  ten  years  of  good  fortune,  begun  to  relax  their  \ig- 
ilance,  leaving  to  the  supernatural,  the  power  which  alone 
their  own  strong,  well-directed  arms  could  accomplish. 
Things  were  in  consequence,  now  in  perfect  readiness  for 
Rome  to  triumph  over  the  rebellion. 

Piso,  instead  of  waiting  to  skirmish  with  the  generals 
of  Eunus,  marched  directly  to  his  stronghold.  It  was  a 
bold  strike;  and  affords  us  an  excellent  exhibit  of  his  cour¬ 
age  and  judgment.  He  was  no  communist ;  and  an  in¬ 
stance  proving  this  is  recorded  which  clearly  shows  that 
socialistic  theories  were  being  discussed  in  those  ancient 
days,  by  rich  and  poor:  In  the  fierce  struggle  which  re¬ 
sulted  in  the  murder  of  the  Gracchi,  this  same  Piso  said  to 
one  of  these  stanch  advocate  s  of  the  rights  of  labor,  as  lie 
railed  against  the  growing  spirit  of  equality  threatening 
extinction  to  the  proud  Roman  gens  and  making  inroads 
upon  the  tribunes  and  the  senate:  “It  is  not  with  my  will 
and  consent  that  you  desire  to  divide  your  property ;  but 
should  you  do  so  I  shall  demand  my  share.”  "  The  slaves 
were  socialists,  enjoying  their  booty  in  common;  and  it 


•6  See  chapter  xi.  below. 

•#  Cicero  Tusculanarum  Di  putationm  L\bri  III.  59,  48. 


EUNUS. 


could  not  be  expected  that  any  leniency  ■would  be  shown 
them  by  Piso. 

According  to  our  authority,  Piso,  after  the  capture  of 
M  essana,  turned  his  campaign  directly  toward  Eunus’ 
jitadel  on  the  heights  of  Enna.  A  captain  of  cavalry  led 
his  force  too  incautiously  and  got  into  an  ambush  laid  by 
the  mutineers  where  he  met  with  some  loss  in  arms,  men 
and  horses.  Piso  singled  him  out  as  a  coward.  He  was 
humiliated,  and  barefoot  and  almost  naked,  obliged  to 
star  d  before  the  tent  as  a  watch,  forbidden  to  speak  with 
his  comrades  or  to  enjoy  his  baths.  Those  left  of  the 
defeated  cavalry  were  ordered  to  give  up  their  horses  and 
go  into  the  company  of  slingers. 81  The  object  of  this  se¬ 
vere  measure  was  to  thoroughly  impress  the  Roman  sol¬ 
diers  with  the  almost  deadly  results  to  them,  of  a  failure 
through  disobedience  or  lack  of  bravery.  On  the  other 
hand,  boih  leaders  and  rank  and  file  were  rewarded  for  an 
act  of  valor.  Valerius  Maximus 88  also  tells  a  story  of  Pi- 
so’s  own  son,  who  for  having  performed  some  meritorious 
act  in  this  campaign,  was  awarded  a  gold  cross  weighing 
three  pounds,  which  he  was  requested  by  his  father  to  pre¬ 
serve  and  wear  after  he  had  returned  to  Rome  and  it  had 
been  publicly  presented.  This  had  the  effect  to  fill  the 
minds  of  all  with  emulation,  adding  dash  and  intrepidity 
while  doubtless  dispelling  a  superstitious  fear  of  the  long 
victorious  slaves. 

At  last  the  Roman  legions  arrived  before  the  walls  of 
Enna  and  immediately  laid  siege.  We  are  indebted  to 
Er.  Bucher’s  invaluable  dissertation,  referring  us  to  Dr. 
Bockh’6  inscriptions  often  used  by  us;  for  without  his 
mention  we  might  have  missed  certain  p allographs  that 
shed  light  upon  the  otherwise  unwritten  pages  of  Piso’s 
siege  of  Enna,"  On  the  northern  steep  of  the  city  is  a 
great  rock  from  which  the  slave  women  flung  headlong 
the  living  form  of  Megallis,  wife  of  Damophilus. "  To 

87  Valerius  Maximus,  Fad.  Did.  Mem.  II.  7.  9.  nid.  IV.  8, 10 

8y Bilcl).  AvJsUlvde.  S.74,  note  1  reads:  ‘Ritcbl.  P.  L.  M.  VIII.  1  :Corpi 
Intcriptionum  Latinarum.  (Eockh)  [no.  642  so.  vgl.  Kitsch  a.  a.  O.  Seiie 
849.  Aus  dem  zw«  iten  Sicilifchen  Aufstande  :  Corp.  Inter.  Orase.  Bbckh 
No.  6870,  6687,  5748,  z.  Th.  mit  dem  Namen  des  Athenion.  No.  6748aas 
Leontinimit  aer  Aufscbrift  APAMEO  geht  vielleicht  auf  dem  APAMEER 
Eunus.  Corp.  Inue .  Lat  No  646.  Sq.  stammen  wohl  aus  dem  Fechter- 
krieg.”  We  however  subjoin  the  remark  that  Diodorus  mentions  Athenion 
as  having  likewise  been  of  Apamea — a  point  which  the  learned  phile 
Wrist  may  have  overlooked. 

“«-«irrent  chaDter,  page  216 


TEE  SIEGE  OF  ENNA.  '21S 


this  day  there  are  occasionally  found,  on  and  about  this 
rock,  balls  from  the  Homan  catapults  which  were  hurled 
at  the  walls  of  the  beleaguered  city  during  that  siege, 91 
These  relics  of  Roman  projectiles  have  the  name,  L.  Piso 
inscribed  upon  them  ;  as  they  are  found  in  quantities, 92 
the  circumstance  goes  far  to  attest  the  prodigious  mag¬ 
nitude  of  the  siege,  as  well  as  the  great  length  of  time 
that  must  have  been  consumed  before  the  place  fell  into 
the  Roman  consul’s  hands.  In  fact,  it  did  not  fall  before 
the  sword  of  Piso.  He  was,  in  some  mysterious  manner, re¬ 
pulsed;  being  probably  many  times  attacked  and  repelled 
by  the  sorties  of  Cleon.  At  last  he  is  found  in  the  nar¬ 
rative  back  on  the  east  coast  having  without  a  shadow  of 
doubt,  been  driven  there  by  the  slave-king. 

In  B.  C.  132,  P.  Rupilius  was  chosen  consul  at  Rome.  As 
just  hinted,  Piso  had  met  with  some  unchronicled  disaster 
at  the  hands  of  the  stubborn  rebels  of  Eunus,  who  had  in 
their  turn,  taken  the  offensive  and  surged  him  back  to 
the  sea.  “  Rupilius  had  already  held  office  in  Sicily  under 
a  joint  stock  company  and  had  made  a  large  fortune  in 
the  capacity  of  a  land  speculator.  During  his  official  life 
there  he  had  acquired  a  good  knowledge  of  the  roads  and 
principal  objective  points  of  the  island. 94  It  was  this  same 
Rupilius  who,  with  Popilejus  Lsenus,  urged  and  in  some 
degree  consummated  the  persecutions  of  Gracchus,  whose 
revival  of  the  ancient  Licinian  law  and  whose  socialistic 
oratory  had  enraged  the  land  and  slave-holding  aristocracy 

/.  L.  nw.  <43,  a  646?  C .  I.  a.  6670,6687,6738;  RltefcL 
/■Uufcis,  VUL  Tl  Bookh,  C.  I.  L.  6748  gives  the  word  Amoco  i.  e :  "Bonos 
of  Apameo  ’*  It  may  mean  Athenian  of  Apamea,  however ;  but  both  were 
powerful  tabor  agitators. 

•»  Pliny,  If.B.  VII.  86;  Clo.  Tus*.  IV.  17,46;  Lai.  10,  30, 73, 6* 

•»  Bdch.  A%J*.  D.  unfr.  Art.  8.  73. 

M  Valerius  Maximus,  Fkttor* m  DieOrumqm  Mtmorabitia,  lib.  VI.  9,  8; 
Stefert  Erster  siciliteh.  SkUivmlcruf  8.86,  note  67,  "Pseudoascon,  in  Verr. 
Dp.  212:  P.  Rupilius  quondam  ox  publicano  factus  consul.  Valer.  Max.  VI, 
9,  8  erzKhlt  aogar,  dass  er  ursprtinsnch,  oin  Dlener  der  Staatspachter  eewesen 
sei :  P.  Rupilius  uon  publicancm  in  Sieilia  egit.  sed  operas  publican!*  dedlt 
Idem  ultimam  inoplam  snam,  auctorato  ooclis  officio,  susteniavit  —  Er  war  oin 
Freund  des  JUngem  Scipio  Cic.  Lael  19.  Als  Consul  fiihrte  er  eu  Anfang 
solnos  Amtsiahrea  mit  seinem  Collegen  Popillius  Laenas  die  Untersuchung 
gegen  die  Mltschuldigen  des  Tib.  Graechu*  (Cic.  Lael.  11,  Val.  Max.  IV.  7, 1) 
Fach  Vellei.  Pat  II,  7  vrurde  or  wegen  der  Strengo,  mit  welcher  diese  Unter- 
suchang  geftlhrt  wurde,  gloich  Popillius  vor  Gericht  gezogen,  wahrcnd  andere 
Schrlfstouer  nur  von  der  Verfolgung  des  Letztem  durch  C.  Graccus  sprechen. 
Vgl.  FniUy’t  RE.  V.  1900.  Er  endete  eplter  pldtzlich  aus  Aerger  uud  Schreck 
•her  die  mlsslungene  Bewerbuug  seines  Bruaers  um  das  Consulat.  Cic.  Tnsc, 
IV,  17.  Irrthil milch  noant  ttfcrigons  Fiorus  III,  19  den  Perperna  als  don  Bt 
Sieger  dor  Sklavoa.’'  . 


220 


EUNUS. 


of  Feme  to  a  high  pitch  and  caused  his  murder  by  a  mob 
of  the  nobility  the  year  before,  while  Piso  was  vainly  be¬ 
sieging  Eunus  at  Enna.  Such  a  man  would  therefore, 
naturally  be  selected  by  them  as  a  proper  person  to  con¬ 
fide  in,  if  sent  to  quell  the  great  uprising  of  their  chattels 
in  Sicily,  It  does  not  appear  however,  that  Rupilius  as¬ 
sumed  command  of  Piso’s  army  immediately  on  his  elec¬ 
tion  to  the  consulship.  But  that  he  superseded  him 96  is 
certain;  for  his  trouble  with  the  unreliableness  of  his  own 
troops  is  spoken  of  by  a  number  of  the  old  writers.  90  A 
son-in-law  of  Rupilius,  Q.  Fabius,  commander-in-chief  of 
a  division  of  Piso’s  army,  had  been  defeated  at  Tauroma- 
nion  on  the  eastern  coast  of  Sicily,  losing  the  citadel,  a 
stronghold  of  much  value.  This  had  proved  a  triumph  to 
the  revolutionists.  But  it  appears  to  have  been  re-taken 
by  Piso  in  some  subsequent  struggle. 91 

Rupilius  on  assuming  command,  found  Tauromanion 
again  in  the  possession  of  Cleon  and  Eunus.  As  a  pun¬ 
ishment,  Fabius  was  deprived  of  his  command  and  com¬ 
pelled  to  quit  the  island.  Rupilius  then  resolved  to  lay 
siege  to  Tauromanion.  The  besieged  fought  desperately 
and  by  an  exhibit  of  courage  and  impetuosity  threw  back 
the  Roman  forces,  driving  them  into  a  corner.  Still  Ru¬ 
pilius  was  not  overcome.  Rallying,  he  attacked  the  de¬ 
fenses  of  the  slaves  and  checked  their  opportunity  to  do 
great  damage.  He  then  closed  them  in  and  began  the 
process  of  starvation  with  all  the  malignant  obstinacy  of  a 
Roman  warrior.  How  long  the  siege  lasted  is  not  quite 
apparent ;  but  in  time,  the  provisions  began  to  disappear. 
Hunger  at  last  made  its  gaunt  and  ghastly  tread  into  the 
abodes  of  the  besieged,  turning  brave  men  into  cannibals 
and  making  life  a  lottery  by  adding  a  horror  of  the  car¬ 
nivore  to  the  pang  of  death.  The  poor  wretches  first  at¬ 
tacked  their  own  children  and  devoured  their  flesh;  and 
then  with  the  true  beastliness  of  the  gunaecophage,  they 

88  Btich.  S.  74.  MValer.  Max.  VI  9,  S. 

•6Diod.  frag.  ii.  §  20.  *>  Valer.Max.  IX.  12;  Oros.  V.  9  ;  Flor.  III.  19. 

w  Id  V.  11,  7,  3  ;Flor.  III.  19. 

Diod.  XXXIV,  frag.  1L  20.  Kara  SiKeAiav  ijvfero  to  KaKiv,  tea i  woA«is  qAtaxovra 
avravSpoL  Kal  iroAAa  arpaToneSa  vno  ru>v  anoaraTOiv  KareKonrjaav,  'PovrtAtoy 
6  Pui fjLaidiv  <TTpa.T7)yb<>  to  Tavpop.evtov  aveau>aaTO  'Pa>/aatoi?,  xaprepws  fxiv  a urb 
rroAiopKrjo-a?,  Kal  et?  itfrarov  avay/erjv  /tai  \ip.'ov  too?  airosraras  crv-yfcAeiVaf,  <Z>;r« 
dp£aptVov?  e/c  ttolSuv  popa y  Kal  SieAflovras  Sia  yvvaiKu>v  nySe  rrjf  avrijv  oAArjAo^av 
i a i  p-fS'  oAaif  (frtiaacrdai. 


CANNIBALISM;  WONDERFUL  DEATH  OF  COMA.  227 


sated  their  wolfish  appetites  on  the  flesh  and  the  innocent 
blood  of  women  and  other  adults  who  could  not  fight. 98 

Tauromanion  was  commanded  by  Cleon’s  brother,  Co- 
manus.  In  a  moment  of  extreme  desperation  the  latter, 
half  dead  with  the  grip  of  famine  made  an  attempt  to  es¬ 
cape.  He  was  however,  detected  issuing  from  the  walls 
of  the  doomed  city.  Arrested  and  led  before  his  hated 
enemy,  the  inexorable  Rupilius,  he  was  questioned  regard¬ 
ing  the  power  of  his  comrades  within  the  fortifications, 
their  objects  and  hopes  of  escape.  The  hour  of  the  bold 
man  of  terrors  had  come.  Never  deigning  an  answer,  with 
an  almost  unheard-of  force  of  will,  the  man,  after  a  wild 
moment’s  pause  and  a  withering  stare,  covered  his  head 
with  his  mantle,  drew  in  his  breath,  and  by  a  superhuman 
struggle  at  self-command,  refused  to  breathe  again,  dying 
amidst  and  before  the  astonished  gaze  of,  Rupilius  and 
his  guards ! 89 

Finally  the  Romans  succeeded  in  battering  through 
the  lower  wall  a  gap  and  thus  forced  an  entrance.  But 
there  }^et  remained  an  excellent  and  almost  impregnable 
citadel  into  which  the  besieged  took  refuge  as  the  Romans 
entered  the  breach.  Here  again  they  safely  held  them¬ 
selves  for  a  time,  until  through  a  treachery  of  one  of  the 
commanders,  the  Romans  were  admitted. 

The  scene  which  followed  must  be  imagined ;  it  cannot 
be  described,  With  a  spirit  of  relentless  vengeance  Ru¬ 
pilius  tied  the  helpless,  writhing  prisoners  fast,  until  his 
soldiers  could  have  time  to  erect  a  multitude  of  gibbets  ; 
then  in  the  frightful  manner  of  all  Roman  criminals  nd 
the  proletarian  outcasts,  they  were  hung  upon  the  igno¬ 
minious  cross.  Afterwards  their  bodies  were  hurled  down 
all  precipices  which  formed  an  escarpment  of  the  cita¬ 
del.  100  Little  indeed  is  preserved  of  this  awful  martyrdom 
but  a  variety  of  broken  gems  corresponding  with  \  he  main 
body  of  our  narrative,  are  extant,  which  leave  us  the  con¬ 
jecture  that  its  language  falls  short  of  the  ghastly  truth. 

It  is  fair  here  to  state  on  the  other  hand  that  a  similar 
cruelty  and  want  of  feeling  characterized  the  men  in  re¬ 
bellion.  Their  vote  at  the  first  deliberative  council  de* 

wDiod.  frag.  ii.  §20;  Oros.  V.  9. 

*®Val.  Max.  IX.  12,  exc-  l- 

looCompar*  Sxefert,  S.  22  with  Bucher,  S.  75, 


228 


EUNUS. 


daring  for  the  butcher-knife  policy  was  an  edict  inhuman 

and  unworthy  of  a  cause  so  exalted  as  that  of  freedom. 
Nor  do  we,  except  under  the  sagacious  Achseus,  find  that 
they  once  deviated  from  this  cruel  and  almost  internecine 
policy  which  may  have  tended  to  harden  the  spirit  in  Ru- 
pilius,  of  revenge,  retaliation  aud  ferocity. 

Rupilius,  having  now  partially  quenched  a  blood-thirst¬ 
ing  spirit  on  these  victims,  marched  directly  for  Enna.  On 
his  arrival  he  found  the  place  an  almost  natural  fortress,  as 
difficult  to  storm  as  Tauromanion.  Upon  one  side  a  sim¬ 
ilar  precipice  formed  a  natural  wall,  impregnable  under 
any  assault.  The  only  thing  practicable  was  to  besiege 
the  place,  wait  until  the  enemy’s  stores  gave  out  and  ap¬ 
ply  for  a  second  time,  the  process  of  starvation.  Cleon, 
the  hitherto  unconquerable  commander-in  chief,  held  the 
fort.  Eunus  and  his  retinue  had  also  gone  back  thither, 
before  the  siege  of  Tauromanion  opened.  Achseus  is  lost 
sight  of.  He  is  mentioned  as  dead;  but  from  what  cause 
is  unknown.  Comanus  had  fallen  at  Tauromanion.  At 
the  siege,  there  frequently  occurred  sorties  of  bodies  of 
volunteers  who  would  sometimes  dash  with  precipitation 
from  within  the  walls,  cutting,  wounding  and  taking  pris¬ 
oners,  numbers  often  of  the  consul’s  best  mem  In  one  of 
these  sallies  Cleon,  the  intrepid  chief,  now  mainstay  of  the 
already  worn  out  and  fainting  slaves,  was  the  leader  in 
person.  The  number  of  the  party  this  time  proved  in¬ 
sufficient  to  cope  with  the  force  which  Rupilius  detailed 
against  them  and  in  an  effort  to  extricate  them  from  the 
peril  Cleon  himself,  in  a  hand  to  hand  conflict,  fell  mor¬ 
tally  wounded,  a  prisoner  of  the  Romans,  and  expired. 

When  the  news  of  the  death  of  this  loved  and  trusted 
leader  came  to  the  ears  of  Eunus  and  l)is  people,  a  gen¬ 
eral  gloom  overspread  the  city.  Courage  was  shattered. 
The  king  himself  lost  hope.  His  faith  forsook  him  and 
he  shrank  in  horror  and  despair.  X  ow  followed  the  work 
of  that  perfidious,  cruel,  with  ancient  workingmen’s  or¬ 
ganizations,  ever-present  pest,  the  traitor.  As  at  Setia,  at 
S union,  at  Tauromanion,  so  here  at  Enna,  this  dangerous 
gorgon  of  insidiousness  and  villainy  was  at  his  post  with 
fair  words  and  foul  intrigue  ready  to  work  his  deadly  poi¬ 
son  for  the  enemy  and  against  a  friend  and  thus  the  keys 
to  the  gates  of  the  city  were  soon  after  the  death  of  Cleon, 


DEATH  OF  CLEON.  THE  IGNOBLE  CROSS.  229 


delivered  to  the  workingmen’s  implaoable  foe.  Enna  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  Romans. 

The  wholesale  slaughter  of  the  people,  all  of  whom  were 
captured,  is  an  untraced  horror.  All  that  we  are  told  by 
the  hints  left  in  fragments  of  its  historians  and  seen  in  later 
commentaries,  is  that  20,000  of  them,  including  the  catas¬ 
trophe  of  Tauromanion,  bit  the  dust.  The  multitude  of 
soldiers,  of  the  aged,  of  women  and  children  who  suffered 
by  sword  and  cross  in  other  parts  of  Sicily,  may  be  easily 
imagined.  But  at  Enna  the  crucifix  for  weeks  was  a  busy 
demon  of  retribution.  A  sullen  gleam  of  joy  seems  to 
have  lit  the  workers  of  revenge  and  to  have  made  the 
glare  of  the  firebrands  of  torture  and  the  sobs  and  moans 
of  the  helpless  in  their  hour  of  agony  so  cruelly  prolonged, 
moments  of  a  true  elysium  to  the  maddened  aristocracy 
with  souls  steeped  in  competition  whose  glaives  wreaked 
as  they  slashed  from  heart  to  heart  of  these  vanquished 
representatives  of  labor. 101 

Eunus  who  had,  during  his  day  of  fortune,  given  him¬ 
self  up  to  luxury  and  perhaps  gluttony,  had  probably  be¬ 
come  demoralized  and  with  him  many  others. loa  A  whole 
people,  suddenly  changed  from  abject  slavery  and  degra¬ 
dation  into  affluence,  becomes  in  turn,  the  arrogant  mas¬ 
ter,  the  owner,  lord ;  and  enters  and  occupies  a  condition 
utterly  unnatural  to  their  expectations,  however  well  it 
may  conform  to  their  tastes.  The  result  is  voluptuous¬ 
ness  and  degeneracy.  The  ten  years’  uninterrupted  reign 
of  Eunus  may  have  resulted  in  jealousies  and  internal  dis¬ 
tempers.  How  Achseus  came  to  his  end  is  unknown ;  but 
suspicion  points  to  some  fatal  feud  between  him  and  Cleon, 

Tne  great  army  of  200,000  soldiers101  at  the  time  of  the 
junction  of  Achseus  and  Cleon  is  no  longer  in  view  upon 
the  arrival  of  Piso  and  the  first  siege  of  Enna.  Where 
were  these  legions,  invincible  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  ? 
What  Jaad  occurred  internally  ? 

Eunus  lost  all  hope  and  courage  at  the  death  of  Cleon; 
and  as  Rupilius  entered,  shrank  from  his  kingly  seat  and 
fled  with  a  thousand  guards,  equally  bereft  of  courage  9 

101  Siefert,  22:  “  Die  Sklaven  wurden  unter  Martern  getfidtet,  melst  von 
den  liohen  FeDen  gesturzt.  Auch  hier  (bei  Henna)  wurden  Taueende  nieder 
geliauen ;  die  Gealiinitzalil  der  In  TaurO  in  onion  und  Henna  getddtdten  Sklaven 
betrug  liber  zwanzigtausend,”  102  Buck.  S.  76, 

loa  Diod.  XXXIV.  frag,  ii ;  Siefet  t,  S.  29  ;  Btich.  S.  66.  Bucher  and 
Siefert  are  agreed  in  putting  the  number  at  200,000.  Livy,  Cleon  alone,  70,000. 


23ft 


EUMJ8. 


hoping  to  escape  to  an  inaccessible  oleft  or  hiding  place 
in  the  mountain.  This  rift  of  rocks  wth  its  trembling  con¬ 
tents  was  soon  discovered  by  a  straggling  party  of  Roman 
troops.  Physical  force  was  at  an  end  and  the  omnipotent 
powers  of  the  humiliated  prophet  were  now  all  that  his  ad¬ 
herents  had  to  fall  back  upon  for  succor.  The  Romans 
approached  and  commenced  furiously  the  work  of  arrest 
Seeing  that  the  goddess  had  withdrawn  her  arm  of  pro¬ 
tection,  the  guards  of  Eunus,  rather  than  suffer  the  hor¬ 
rors  of  the  cruel  and  ignominious  crucifixion,  fell  to  mu¬ 
tual  extermination  and  by  a  desperate  inter-suicide,  rob¬ 
bed  the  gibbet  of  its  prey.  Eunus  with  his  cook,  his  baker, 
his  bath  attendant  and  “king’s  fool,” 104  having  no  courage 
for  mutual  self-destruction,  hid  in  a  deep  crevice  of  the 
crag.  Thither  the  inexorable  Romans  followed  and  drag¬ 
ged  them  out.  They  then  hung  his  kitchen  mates  upon 
a  cross. 

As  to  Eunus,  he  was  first  taken  to  the  dungeon  of  Mor- 
gantion,  under  guard ;  afterwards,  according  to  Plutarch, 
to  Rome,  (probably  the  career  Tullianus ,  or  one  of  the 
underground  Mamertine  caves)  where  in  excruciating  mis¬ 
ery,  covered  with  vermin  and  seething  in  filth,  darkness 
and  terror,  he  ended  his  extraordinary  life.106 

Rupilius  was  a  man  too  thorough  to  leave  his  work  un¬ 
finished.  He  sent  powerful  detachments  into  every  part 
of  Sicily  wherever  his  scouts  brought  intelligence  of  any 
group  of  rebels  still  at  large.  Great  numbers  of  them 
were  seized,  brought  into  head-quarters  and  thence  taken 


m  DIod.  XXXIV.  frag.  ii.  22. 

'O&Diod.^  XXXIV.  frag.  il.  23.  Dind.  ’*Kai  wapaSofleif  tit  f  vAaxrjy,  *ai  row 
rttfiarotavTov  8taAu0e>ro?  tit  00ei pSiv  jrArjflo?,  once itat  T7js7repi  avrov  paSiovpyiat 
KaTtarrpe\]/t  tov  fttov  iv  r>j  Mopyaurlve Livy.  Eplt.  XC  :  “Capitar,  carcdre  a 
pediculis  devoratur;”  Plutarch,  in  Life  of  Sylla.  37,  says;  '‘This 
aheess,”  speaking  of  Sylla,  “corrupted  his  flesh  turning  it  all  into  li.  e.”  **  * 
“We  are  told  that  among  the  an  lents,  Acastus,  son  oi  Pelias,  died  of  this 
sickness;  and  oi  those  that  come  nearer  our  times,  Airmen  the  poet,  Pher- 
e  ydes  the  divine,  Callisthenes  t  e  Olynthian  who  was  kept  in  close  prison, 
and  Mucius  the  lawyer.  And  after  these  we  may  take  noti  e  of  a  man  who 
did  not  distinguish  himself  by  anything  laudable,  but  was  noted  in  another 
way,  it  may  be  mentioned  that  the  fugitive  slave  Eunus,  who  kindled  up  the 
servile  war  in  Sicily  and  was  afterwards  ta  en  and  carried  to  Home,  died 
there  of  this  disease:”  Siefert  22  “Mit  4  seiner  Dieufer,  dem  Koch,  dem  Backer, 
dem  Badesklaven  und  dem  Lustigrnacner  ward  er  in  einer  ilolhe  geiangeu 
Er  start)  im  Gefangniss  an  derL&usekrankheit  entweder  zn  Morgantion  Oder 
Rom."  According  to  Prudontins  ( Hymn  V,)  the  ancient  cavern  riso  ns 
were  constructed  with  an  object  to  roduce  as  much  torture  a'  possible. 
Other  ancuiii  authors  agree  in  conveying  the  idea  that  human  ingenuity  was 
taxed  !  n  eut  si  ch  hedls. 


ZMM  AJAiSAXiJiUUiS  MUNJJ. 


231 


to  the  many  Dionysian  quarries  or  lapicidinae ,  dungeons 
for  which  Sicily  was  famous,  and  those  found  guilty  of  di¬ 
rect  participation  in  the  uprising  were  crucified.  But 
these  latter  were  the  most  numerous  share.  All  the  rest 
tvere  re-delivered  to  their  masters  to  receive  worse  treat¬ 
ment  than  before. 

Such  was  the  first  servile  war  in  Sicily ;  the  greatest 
labor  rebellion  or  strike,  on  record  in  any  country  or  at 
any  time.  It  was  a  most  suggestive  matter ;  being  in¬ 
spired  by,  based  upon,  animated,  from  its  inception  and 
all  through  by  grievances  against  the  conditions  regulating 
labor  and  relying  upon  the  superstitious  idea  of  a  Mes¬ 
siah,  fervently  believed,  among  the  ancient  poor,  to  be 
their  promised  deliverer. 


CHAPTER  X. 


ARISTON ICUS. 

A  BLOODY  STRIKE  IN  ASIA  MINOR. 

Fbebdmen,  Bondsmen,  Tramps  and  Illegitimates  Rise  against  0]> 
pression — Oontagion  of  monster  Strikes — Again  the  Irasci¬ 
ble  Plan  of  Rescue  tried — Aristonicus  of  Pergamus — Story 
of  the  Murder  of  Titus  Gracchus  and  of  300  Land  Reformers 
by  »  Mob  of  Nobles  at  Rome— Blossius,  a  Noble,  Espouses 
the  Cause  of  the  Workingmen — He  goes  to  Pergamus — The 
Heliopolitai — The  Commander  of  tbe  Labor  Army  overpow¬ 
ers  all  Resistance — Battle  of  Leuca— Overthrow  of  the  Rom¬ 
ans — Death  of  Orassus — Arrival  of  the  Consul Paperna — De¬ 
feat  of  the  Insurgents — Their  Punishment — Discouragement 
and  Suicide — Aristonicus  strangled,  Thousands  crucified  and 
the  0  ause  Lost — Old  Authors  Quoted. 

The  great  uprising  or  strike,  partly  of  slaves  and  partly 
of  freedmen,  artisans  and  farmers  at  Pergamus  and  in  its 
vicinity,  was  to  some  extent  the  result  of  the  abortive  slave 
revolution  in  Sicily  just  described.  It  is  interesting  to 
the  student  of  sociology,  but  especially  so  to  the  student 
of  social  life  in  antiquity,  in  many  respects,  if  for  no  other 
reason  than  that  it  occurred  but  a  short  distance  from 
Palestine  with  its  Nazareth,  its  Jerusalem,  its  thousand 
memorable  scenes  that  163-166  years  afterwards  cradled 
and  founded  the  mightier,  more  imperishable  revolu¬ 
tion  of  Christianity  which  aimed  the  final  blow  at  slavery. 

Pergamus,  on  the  river  Guicus,  was,  at  the  time  of  tins 
story,  a  beautiful  city,  already  ancient  in  years  and  vicis¬ 
situdes.  Attalus  III.,  a  son  of  Eumenes,  a  freaky,  cruel 
and  jealous  monarch,  ruled  the  place  from  B.  0.  138  to 
133,  when  at  his  death  he  transferred  it  without  a  con- 


RESULTS  OF  GRACCHUS'  ASSASSINATION.  *33 


eet  to  the  Romans;  so  that  it  was  a  Roman  possession 
when  our  story  begins.  The  official  news  of  this  testa¬ 
ment  of  Attalus  was  delivered  to  the  delighted  Roman 
Senate  in  the  early  fall  of  B.  0.  183.  There  had  been  a 
great  turmoil  in  Rome,  occasioned  by  the  abortive  attempt 
of  Titus  Gracchus  to  restore  the  Lieinian  law,  making  it 
s  crime  for  any  person  to  hold  moi  e  than  500  acres  of 
land.  The  entire  aristocracy  had  combined  with  the 
most  unscrupulous  and  desperate  resistance  against  Grac¬ 
chus  ;  and  that  same  year  had  murdered  him  for  daring 
to  propose  a  measure  which  might  curtail  their  arrogant 
and  altogether  illegal  seizure  and  appropriation  of  the 
public  domain,  ager  publicus;  thus  building  up  a  landed 
aristocracy.  The  poor  people,  freedmen  and  slaves,  had 
been  intensely  interested  in  the  results  of  the  commotion, 
which  in  the  assassination  of  Gracchus  by  the  lords  and  the 
overthrow  of  his  noble  measure,  had  been  a  disaster  to 
them.  Finally  the  defeat  of  Eunus  and  his  army  of  revo¬ 
lutionists  in  Sicily,  at  that  moment  accomplished  by  Rupil- 
ius,  added  to  the  woe  of  the  entire  plebeian  class.  But 
now,  as  if  this  misfortune  was  not  enough  o  till  their 
cup  of  bitterness,  the  news  arrives  from  Asia  Minor,  a 
country  in  which  the  trade  and  labor  unions  were  mo  'o 
splendidly  organized  than  almost  any  other  part  of  tne 
world,1  that  Pergamus  and  the  whole  rich  province  of 
Eumenes  and  his  successors,  was,  without  a  struggle, 
turned  over  to  the  greedy  Romans,  with  its  beautiful  and 
fertile  valleys  of  the  Guicus  and  tributaries,  to  become 
the  scene  of  human  slavery  and  its  extended  horrors.  Al¬ 
ready  this  terrible  institution  was  planted  there,  compet¬ 
ing  with  free  labor.  But  this  free  labor  is  proved  by  the 
inscriptions  to  have  been  so  well  organized  and  so  self- 
sustaining  that  it  could  exist  under  almost  any  government 
except  that  of  the  conquering,  trampling  Romans.  The 
news,  then,  that  Pergamus  had  been  deeded  to  Rome, 
without  even  consulting  her  people,  was  a  mournful  shadow 
which  the  proletarian  class,  if  we  judge  by  what  followed, 
oertainly  interpreted  to  mean  the  doom  of  liberty  and  or¬ 
ganization.  Plutarch  thinks  that  human  slavery  and  its 
booty  had  much  to  do  with  this  strange  transaction,  which 
afforded  Gracchus  a  chance  to  argue  for  an  immediate 

1  tupUi*  xlx.  Miii  XXL 


234 


ARISTONICUS. 


distribution  of  money  and  lands,  left  in  the  testament  oi 

the  dead  king,  among  the  poor,  under  this  new  agrarian 

measure  which  had  actually  passed  and  become  a  law.* 

Of  course  such  a  proposition  only  exasperated  the  Roman 

lords  to  the  frenzy  which  burst  into  a  tumultuous  mob 

and  ended  in  that  eloquent,  well-meaning  tribune’s  violent 

death,  followed  by  a  great  insurrection  or  mob  of  the 

Roman  lords  and  the  murder  of  over  300  work  people  at 

Rome.  There  has  been  considerable  comment  by  the  his- 

%/ 

torians  and  others,  as  to  the  legality  of  the  testament  of 
Attalus,®  who  at  the  time  of  his  death  is  thought  by  his 
strange  conduct  to  have  been  insane. 

Attains  had  a  half  brother  named  Aristonicus,  a  natural 
son  of  E  umenes  by  a  woman  of  the  place  who  was  a  daughter 
of  a  musician  whom  probably  the  royal  family  had  em¬ 
ployed.  According  to  a  clause  in  the  law  of  succession  it 
appears  that  this  person,  now  a  strong,  ambitious  and  vig¬ 
orous  man,  was  the  real  heir  apparent  to  the  throne,  al¬ 
though  only  half  noble  and  the  other  half  plebeian  by 
birth.  He  certainly  submitted  with  a  bad  grace  to  the 
arbitrary  testament  of  the  dead  king,  which,  it  was  sus¬ 
pected,  had  been  accomplished  through  intriguing  Roman 
lawyers  often  seen  hovering  about  the  palace.4  Aristoni¬ 
cus  entered  his  claim  to  the  throne  immediately  after  the 
tyrant’s  death.  He  entered  into  the  new  project  with 
energy.  Nor  was  he  without  friends.  The  largest  part  oi 
the  kingdom  favored  his  pretention.  There  were  many 
cities  of  some  dimensions  lying  in  the  valleys  of  the  river 
Gaicus  and  its  tributaries,  nearly  all  of  which  determined 
for  him  from  the  start  as  their  future  king.  By  the  ap¬ 
pearance  of  things  Aristonicus  was  not  only  one  of  the 
common  people  but  very  popular  among  them.  Like  the 


*  Plntarch,  Tiberius  Sempronius  Gracchus,  14,  Oros.  V.  8.  Gracchus  had  not 
met  his  fate  when  Eudamus  delivered  the  testament,  of  Attalus  to  the  Romans. 

8  Livy,  Epitom.  LVIII.,  LVIX.  which  give  us  enough  to  show  that  Livy  also 
wrote  the  history  of  this  great  mutiny  which  he  calls  a  helium  servile.  Oros.  V. 
8.  10.  Strabo,  XIII.  Sallust,  IV,  Historiarum  PopulA  Romani  Libri,  fragments 
4  Fumenem,  cujus  amicitiam  gloriose  ostentant  initio  prodidere  Antiocho  paci. 
nercedem ;  post  Attalum  custodem  agri  captivi  sumtibus  et  contumeliis  ex 
ege  miserrumnm  servornm  effecere:  simulatoqne  Impio  testamento,  fllium  ejns 
Aristonicum,  quia  patrium  reguum  petiverat.  hostium  more  per  triumphant 
luxere:  Asiaab  ipsls  obsessa  est :  postremototamBithyniam,  Nicomede  mortuo, 
iiripuere,  cum  filing  Nusaj,  nuam  reginam  appellaverant.  genitns  baud  dubis 
sset.”  Filch.  Aujti.  S.  108. 

^Dlod.  XXXI V,,  frags,  iu  and  111,  Oros.  V.  10.  Strabo,  XIV.  p.  646  Polyl 


CITIZENS  OF  THE  SUN. 


235 


rest,  he  was  a  castaway.  Rome  haughtily  refused  to  re¬ 
cognize  his  claim.  A  number  of  cities  like  Colophon, 
Myndum,  and  thickly  populated  places  as  Samos,  even  if 
they  wished  to  side  with  him,  were  afraid  of  the  Romans. 
To  secure  them  it  was  necessary  to  use  armed  force. 
Aristonicus  soon  found  himself  at  the  head  of  a  consider¬ 
able  army  and  also  a  little  navy  consisting  of  a  number 
of  ships.  From  the  palace  he  had  obtained  some  money 
and  with  it  he  hired  Thracian  freedmen  as  mercenaries,  a 
common  practice  of  those  times.  Besides  these,  many  of 
the  soldiers  were  those  who  formerly  had  done  duty  for 
his  brother. 

The  Ephesians,  seeing  the  turn  things  were  taking  sent 
a  fleet  against  him  which  completely  destroyed  his  little 
squadron  near  the  coast  opposite  Cyme.  Aristonicus  now 
determined  to  depend  upon  trying  his  fortunes  by  land. 

Great  numbers  of  slaves  having  heard  of  the  success  of 
Eunus  in  Sicily,  and  fearing,  as  well  they  might,  that  the 
occupation  of  Pergamus  by  the  Romans  would  result  in 
their  worse  degradation,  were  ready  to  welcome  the  new 
adventurer.  The  organized  freedmen  had  cause  for  still 
greater  fears.  It  was  at  the  commencement  of  those  days 
of  persecution  of  trade  unions  by  the  Romans  which  cul¬ 
minated  B.  C.  58,  in  a  law  for  their  suppression.6  The 
workingmen  of  antiquity  possessed  means  of  conveying 
intelligence  of  their  hopes,  fears  and  methods  from  one 
center  or  post  to  another;  and  it  is  ascertained  that  in 
this  war  of  the  pretender  to  the  throne  of  Pergamus,  large 
numbers,  not  only  of  slaves,  but  also  of  freedmen  joined 
his  army,  although  it  was  always  known  as  the  servile  war. 

In  the  interior  he  found  the  slaves  already  in  rebellion. 
They  had  raised  in  a  great  insurrection,  murdered  their 
masters,  taken  possession  of  their  estates 6  and  were  or¬ 
ganizing  an  army  when  Aristonicus  appeared  before  them 
making  overtures  for  their  mutual  assistance.  He  offered 
them  their  freedom  and  a  respectable  place  in  the  army. 
He  promised  them  that  on  the  result  of  success  he  would 
build  up  a  state  based  on  their  ideal  of  freedom  and  equal¬ 
ity  as  had  been  advocated  in  the  meetings  of  the  unions. 


»  See  chaps,  xii  to  xviii,  containing  full  accounts  with  foot  notes  of  proof 
reference. 

«D  od.  XXXIV.  frag .  iiL 


286 


ARISTONICUS. 


The  eranoi  and  thiasoi'  existed  in  great  numbers  on  this 
coast  of  Asia  Minor,  especially  at  Cyme,  Pergamos  and 
Samos.  These,  in  common  with  those  in  Greece,  Syria,  and 
the  islands,  had  established  a  culture  of  democracy.  The 
promise  made  to  these  confiding  people  was  that  they  should 
have  the  enjoyment  of  their  rights  guaranteed  them  and 
should  be  made  full  citizens;  their  state  which  the  new 
monarch  was  to  govern  for  them  was  to  be  the  “  sun  ”  among 
nations  and  they  were  to  be  the  ennobled,  dazzling  citizens 
of  the  sun,  Heliopolitai.  Such  a  condition  bespoke  almost 
the  opposite  of  what  they  had  ever  seen  in  human  govern¬ 
ment.  The  old  groundwork  of  Greek  government  was  one 
of  lordship  and  bondsmen,  dividing  mankind  by  a  gap  so 
wide  that  it  could  scarcely  be  passed  by  leaps  of  fortune  or 
aptitude.  Yet  they  seem  to  have  been  able  to  comprehend 
the  force  of  these  promises.  The  discussions  they  had  pre¬ 
viously  had  in  their  societies  had  prepared  them  to  receive 
and  appreciate  the  promise.  On  the  other  hand  they  were 
to  work  with  an  obedient  will  and  help  the  new  king  to  estab¬ 
lish  himself  on  the  throne.  Dr.  Bucher 8  points  out  that 
the  dazzling  idea  of  becoming  such  citizens  of  the  sun  was 
what  enraptured  and  won  the  slaves  of  Enna  and  all  Sicily 
over  to  Emms  during  the  great  servile  war.  The  more 
ancient  Syrian  religion  had  been  that  of  sun-worship,  and 
their  sun-god  was  equivalent  in  power  and  importance  to 
the  Greek  Jove.®  The  Syrians  had  an  idea  that  their  sun- 
worship  was  done  to  a  sun-god  and  goddess ;  the  god  being 
equal  to  Jupiter  and  the  goddess  to  Deineter  or  Ceres.  So 
we  hear  of  Emms  pretending  to  be  the  chosen  represent  a¬ 
tive  of  Ceres,  who  made  the  sun  warm  the  fruits  of  the 
earth.  Like  the  Greek  gods  who  dwelt  on  the  height  of 
Olympus  the  ouranos  or  vaulted  dome  of  heaven,  so  Adad 
and  Atargatis,  the  sun-god  and  goddess  of  the  Syrians,10  had 
their  celestial  home  on  the  plateau  eminence  between  the 
twin  mountains  of  Lebanon,  at  the  source  of  the  Orontes, 
whose  waters  swept  the  foot  of  Antioch.  Sun  and  earth 

t  For  eranos  and  thiasos ,  the  ancient  Greek-speaking  labor  onions,  see  chap. 

xlx.  infra. 

s  A  ufst&nde  der  Unfreien  Arbeiter ,  S.  106.  Der  name  der  Ilellopoliten  weist 
darauf  bin,  (lass  es  derselbe  war  darch  welchen  Ennns  seine  Syrer  fanatisirte.” 

*  Macrobius  Salunialioruin  Libri,  1, 13, 10,  Eyssenhardt,  l»6b:  “*A8»ymquoque 
solem  sub  nomine  Jovis,  quem  Aia  'HAiou7roA.tTm'Cognominant,  maxiwis  cerimo- 
uiia  celebrant  in  civitate  quae  Heliopolis  nunc  ipatur  ” 

iu  Strabo  Xll. 


BIS  FIRST  VICTORIES . 


237 


ire  within  their  power  which  is  all  that  is  glory,  goodness 
and  light.  Thus  these  poor  enslaved  beings,  stunted  by 
hard  labor  and  sufferings,  either  as  slaves  under  the  master’s 
lash  or  as  freedmen  whose  organizations  are  threatened  or 
broken  up,  and  whose  business  is  lost — they  being  already 
in  a  state  of  insurrection — quickly  grasped  the  offer  of  Aris- 
tonicus  and  became  his  soldiers. 

Thus  began  another  great  strike  or  uprising  of  the  labor- 
class  ;  this  time  in  far  off  Asia  Minor,  that  was  destined  to 
add  one  more  link  to  the  already  immense  concatenation  of 
circumstances  leading  to  the  great  revolution  of  Jesus.  But 
it  may  be  looked  upon  as  a  most  necessary  thing  in  the 
stubborn  logic  of  a  fiat ,  in  order  that  mankind  might  be 
taught  the  utter  fallacy  of  any  vengeful  policy  based  upon 
the  purely  irascible,  combating  the  acquisitive  or  concupis¬ 
cent  impulses  of  human  nature. 

Aristouicus  began  the  war  with  slaves  and  freedmen  as 
soldiers,  in  a  manner  similar  to  that  of  Eutius.  His  object 
was  to  become  a  king  over  a  socialistic  state.  We  are  not 
aware  of  the  number  of  cities  that  refused  him,  but  it  must 
have  been  considerable.11  These  he  stormed  and  on  forcing 
an  entrance,  plundered  and  treated  with  cruelty.  The  first 
city  taken  was  Thyratira;  the  next  Apollonis — large  towns 
built  by  the  Atalse  and  Seleucidm. 

Conquest  followed  and  city  after  city  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  pretender  and  his  rebel  army.  This  successful  cam¬ 
paign  continued  until  we  find  them  in  possession  of  the  en¬ 
tire  kingdom.  Nothing  is  imparted  to  us  in  regard  to 
whether  the  neighboring  slaves  rebelled  against  their  mas¬ 
ters,  in  imitation  of  these  proceedings  at  Pergamus. 

At  Rome,  little  or  nothing  was  clone  during  the  year  B, 
C.  133-132,  to  quell  the  new  uprising  in  Asia.  The  great 
city  was  still  trembling  midst  the  cyclonic  billows  of  the 
Gracchan  revolt.  Thenew  servile  wars  atRome  and  Capua, 
excited  to  a  high  pitch  by  the  affair  of  Gracchus  and  his 
agrarian  law  was  a  dangerous  rekindling  of  the  war  of  Eunus. 
Titus  Gracchus  during  this  period  was  assassinated,  as  we 
shall  soon  relate,  and  a  large  detachment  of  the  Roman  army 
was  still  absent  in  Sicily  under  Rupilius,  putting  down  th^ 

\ 

11  Sallust  wrote  a  full  history  of  the  war  but  his  detail*  are  all  gone.  Noth¬ 
ing  of  his  valuable  history  remains  except  fragment*,  some  of  them  so  broken 
as  to  contain  only  half  a  line. 


238 


AMSTON1CUS. 


immense  social  upheaval  recounted  in  the  preceding  chapter. 

Thus,  for  a  short  time  Rome  had  no  time  to  turn  atten¬ 
tion  toward  her  new  territory'  of  Pergamus  bequeathed  her 
by  Attalus  III.  When  the  news,  however,  reached  the  city 
that  the  pretender  was  earnestly  and  successfully  making 
headway  and  with  the  armed  proletaries,  rapidly  achieving 
their  object,  the  Romans  awoke  to  a  realization  of  the  truth. 
But  wherever  the  promise  of  booty  showed  itself  they  were 
seldom  known  to  lie  negligent  or  apathetic. 

The  two  consuls  for  the  year  131  were  P.  Licinius  Cras- 
sus  Mucianus  and  L.  Valerius  Flaccus.  According  to  an 
old  usage,  Licinius  Orassus  was  the  Pontifix  Maximus,  and 
as  such,  through  a  religious  superstition,  could  not  leave 
Italy.  Pagan  religion  also  interposed  against  the  other  con¬ 
sul  taking  the  field  ;  he  being  Flamen  Martialis  to  his  col¬ 
league  There  arose  a  dispute  among  the  senators,  and  the 
illustrious  name  of  Scipio  Africanus  was  brought  up  for  the 
general  command  of  the  expedition.  But  this  plan  was  re¬ 
jected  and  it  was  at  last  resolved  to  send  Orassus,  who  had 
been  one  of  the  ardent  friends  of  Gracchus  and  his  land  re¬ 
form,  and  for  this  reason  was  beloved  by  the  common  peo¬ 
ple.  Another  reason  for  preferring  him  for  the  command 
of  the  expedition  was,  that  he  was  not  only  master  of  the 
Greek  but  also  spoke  its  Asiatic  dialects;  and  having  ex¬ 
hibited  talent  as  an  orator,  he  was  believed  to  possess  a 
variety  of  abilities  necessary  to  insure  success.1* 

He  set  sail  from  Rome  during  the  early  part  of  the  year, 
with  his  whole  army  and  the  navy  constituting  in  all  a  large 
force,  and  with  a  prosperous  voyage  on  the  Mediterranean 
arrived  safely  in  the  harbor  of  Pergamus.1*  He  had  no 
other  idea  than  to  make  himself  master  of  the  new  legacy 
of  Pergamus ;  for  it  does  not  appear,  because  he  sympa¬ 
thized  with  Gracchus  and  the  Italian  proletariat,  that  he 
even  understood  or  cared  in  the  least,  for  an  almost  exactly 
similar  state  of  suffering  and  somewhat  similar  movement 
in  Asia.  The  question  of  sympathy  with  the  poor  seems  to 
illy  befit  the  objects  of  the  commander  of  the  expedition 

12  Valerius  Maximus  VIII.  7,  0:  “Jam  P,  Orassus,  cum  In  Asiarn  ad  Aria- 
tonicum  regem  Sebellaudum  conBiil  venisset.  tanta  cura  (Irrocae  linguae  notltlam 
animo  comprehendit,  ut  earn  in  quinqne  divisam  genera  per  omnes  partes  an 
uumeros  penitus  cognosceret-  Quaeres  maximum  ei  sociorum  amorem  concl- 
liavit.  qna  quis  eorum  lingua  apud  tribaral  illiug  postulaverat,  eadem  lecreU 
reddenti.”  Cic.  Phil.  XI,  8, 18. 

Cell.  I.  13.  11. 


ARRIVAL  OF  B  LOS  Si  US 


233 

against  Aristonicus.  It  would  seem  that  the  impulses  of 
tenderness  he  had  manifested  for  Gracchus  and  the  Italian 
poor  and  his  rising  power  shown  by  his  election  might  have 
played  a  deal  in  deciding  upon  Crassus  against  Scipio  to 
get  him  out  of  the  way. 

On  landing,  Crassus  had  interviews  with  Nicomedes,  king 
of  Bithynia;  Mithradates,  king  of  Pontus;  Ariarthes,  king  of 
Cappadocia  and  Pylaemenes  of  Paphlagonia;  all  of  whom 
were  seriously  alarmed  about  the  labor  agitation,  expect¬ 
ing  similar  uprisings  would  take  place  in  their  own  terri¬ 
tories  ;  and  they  were  probably  trembling  in  view  of  the 
danger.  They  all  eagerly  joined  with  the  Romans  in  their 
effort  to  put  down  the  rebels.  Each  pledged  himself  to 
contribute  a  strong  force  of  troops. 

On  the  other  hand,  Aristonicus,  in  addition  to  his  prole¬ 
taries,  had  also  engaged  another  body  of  soldiers,  consisting, 
of  Thracian  mercenaries.  Phocsea,  one  of  the  finest  cities 
supported  him  and  many  others  staked  their  interests  in  him. 
But  his  best  piece  of  fortune  was  meeting  with  Blossius  of 
Cumae,  a  stoic,  who  infused  with  the  spirit  of  the  movement 
of  Gracchus  and  also  of  Eunus  of  Sicily,  had  risen  in  Asia 
Minor  as  advocate  of  the  rights  of  mankind  and  become  a 
social  reformer.14  Plutarch  tells  the  full  story  of  Blossius, 
We  reproduce  his  and  other  points. 

A  man  named  Blossius  from  the  Italian  municipium  of 
Cumae,  subject  to  Rome,  who,  it  appears,  was  an  educated 
patrician,  for  some  cause  unexplained  became  greatly 
charmed  by  the  majestic  eloquence  of  Gracchus  and  his  ex¬ 
traordinary  defense  of  the  poor  working  population  of  Italy. 
What  inspired  him  to  it  may  be  conjectured  to  have  existed 
in  some  degree  independently  of  an  enthusiasm  for  one  man. 
The  city  of  Cumae  was  itself  a  home  of  labor  unions.1*  It 
was  about  that  time  also  that  persecutions,  frowns  and 
threats  had  set  in  against  labor  organizations  of  every  kind. 
Roman  aristocracy  had  lived  to  see  the  steady  growth  of 
human  liberty  and  was  shrewd  enough  to  perceive  that  trade 
unionism  was  a  potent  factor  in  its  promotion.  Labor 
unions  took  a  political  shape  notwithstanding  the  severe 

14  Plutarch,  Tiberius  Gracchus,  17,  20;  Valerius  Maximus,  IV.  7,  1;  Cicero, 
Latl.,  11,  37. 

16  Orellius,  Inscritionum  Latinai~um  Collectio,  Nos.  2,263,  6,422,  6,463,  6,158, 
131.  These  figures  refer  to  slabs  of  stone  on  which  are  found  inscribed  the  reg- 
istsrs  of  collegii  or  trade  unions  <  umm  must  have  been  a  hive  of  unions  at  that 
time. 


240 


ARISTON1CUS. 


laws  against  them.  To  head  off  these  tendencies  of  organ¬ 
ized  labor,  existing  not  only  in  Cumse  but  everywhere,  the 
Roman  lords  were  combined  almost  to  a  man,  heart  and 
soul  and  with  malignant  determination,  to  destrov  them. 
To  do  this  the  more  effectually  they  appealed  to  the  avari¬ 
cious  instincts  of  the  so-called  citizen  class,  portraying  the 
immense  individual  wealth  which  might  be  developed  from 
the  great  accessions  of  stock  and  farm  lands  falling  to  the 
Roman  arms  through  conquest.  This  wealth  was  already 
in  many  places  being  realized  and  the  power  to  be  used  for 
its  development  was  human  slavery.  The  slave  power  was 
the  muscle  of  the  subjugated  tillers  of  the  land.  But  to 
accomplish  this  there  must  be  rigorous  laws  for  suppressing 
free  labor.  Gracchus,  who  had  seen  the  horrors  of  slavery 
in  Etruria  while  once  traveling  through  that  country  on 
business,  had  determined  to  devote  his  life  to  the  rescue  of 
the  slaves  and  threatened  freedmen.  Blossius  saw  him  and 
they  became  intimate  friends. 

On  the  morning  of  the  fatal  patrician  mob,  “  Gracchus,” 
says  Plutarch,  “who  was  a  grandson  of  Scipio  African  us, 
set  off  for  the  Forum  of  Rome  when  he  heard  that  the  pop¬ 
ulace  were  gathering  there  ;  but  not  without  a  presentiment 
of  ill  omen.  A  brace  of  snakes  had  laid  eggs  in  his  highly 
ornamented  helmet.  The  chickens  from  whose  entrails  the 
aruspex  was  to  forshadow  his  augury,  refused  to  come  from 
their  coop  and  eat.  Two  black  ravens  were  seen  fighting 
on  the  roof  of  a  house  and  one  of  them  rattled  a  stone  down 
at  his  feet.”  16  All  these  were  bad  omens11  which  to  those 
superstitious  people  proved  so  disastrous  by  prostrating  their 
faith,  hopes  and  consciences  in  many  an  hour  of  trial  and 
caused  disasters  more  terrible  than  their  enemies  themselves. 
The  boldest  of  the  comrades  of  Gracchus  were  staggered. 
Further  than  this,  when  he  left  the  threshold  of  his  home, 
Gracchus  had  stumbled  and  hurt  his  toe  so  badly  that  it  bled 
profusely.  Blossius  was  with  him,  and  it  seems  was  the 
spokesman  of  the  train. 

Gracchus,  like  many  anot  her  leader  among  the  ancients, 
shrank  at  this  array  of  ill  omens,  but  Blossius  dissuaded  him 
from  his  timid  design  of  returning  by  the  following  per- 

18  Plutarch,  Titus  Gracchus. 

17  Fustel  de  Coulanges,  Cit£  Antique,  is  the  beat  work  we  can  refer  to  for  an 
explanation  of  the  influence  of  superstitions  in  ancient  times.  For  tho  supersti¬ 
tions  themselves,  see  Julias  Obsequens,  de  Prodiffiis,  passim. 


BLOSSIUS  GOES  TO  ASIA . 


241 


Buasive  speech:  “For  Tiberias  Gracchus,  grandson  of 
Scipio  African  us  and  tribune  of  the  Bomans,  to  be  scared  at 
a  crow,  and  disappoint  the  people  who  are  assembled  to  re¬ 
ceive  his  aid, would  bean  unendurable  disgrace.  His  enemies 
would  not  alone  laugh  at  such  a  blunder  but  they  would 
malign  him  to  the  common  people  as  an  insolent  tyrant.” 
Friends  also  now  came  to  herald  the  fact  that  a  great  num¬ 
ber  of  people  were  gathering  and  were  impatient  of  his  ar¬ 
rival  and  that  all  was  calm. 

The  outcome  of  it  was  that  Gracchus  yielded,  but  was 
soon  beset  by  one  of  those  terrible  mobs  of  Boman  nobles 
and  their  hirelings,  denounced  as  an  ambitious  schemer  who 
wanted  nothing  but  the  votes  and  support  of  the  rabble  and 
intended  to  make  himself  tyrant  of  Koine.  They  set  upon 
the  defenceless  man  and  murdered  him  with  kicksand  clubs. 

So  great  was  the  faith  of  Blossius  in  Gracchus  that  when 
afterwards  asked  if  he  would  have  burned  the  capitol  had 
he  been  commanded  by  him  to  do  so,  he  replied  that  Grac¬ 
chus  was  too  wise  to  have  made  such  a  command,  but  sup¬ 
plemented  it  when  pressed  with  the  daring  answer  that  he 
should  have  obeyed,18  Blossius,  notwithstanding  the  trea¬ 
son,  escaped  and  was  not  pursued,  probably  because  he  was 
thought  to  be  infatuated.  He  now  bent  his  course  toward 
Asia  Minor  19  and  joined  his  learning  and  influence  to  the 
insurrection  of  the  freedmen  and  slaves,  under  the  leader¬ 
ship  of  Aristonicus. 

We  now  return  to  the  career  of  Publius  Crassus,  a  rela¬ 
tive  of  the  Gracchi — Cuius,  the  brother  of  Tiberius  Gracchus, 
having  married  his  daughter  Licinia.  As  mentioned,  he  had 
no  sympathy  whatever  with  the  emancipation  movement 
which  was  then  raging  over  the  known  world,  excepting 

18  Cicero,  Lcelius.  11.  makes  this  account  almost  exactly  simiiar  with  that  of 
Plutarch,  or  of  Valerius  Maximus  Lit  Amictiia,  VIII  vii  1 ;  k  Nam  cum  senates 
Rupilta  a-  Lteuati  consulibus  mandasaet,  ut  in  eos  qui  cum  Gracchooonsenser- 
ant,  more  majormn  an  .mail  verterent :  et  ad  Laslium,  cujus  consi.io  p:ajcique 
consules  u’ebantur,  pro  se  Blossius  deprecatum  venisset,  familiaritatisque  ex- 
cusatione  uteretur,  atque  is  dixisset.  Quid  site  Gracchus  templo  Jovis  Opt. 
Max  faces  subdere  jussisset;  obsecutnruene  volontat  il'.ius,  propter  istam  quam 
iactas  familiaritatem,  fusses?  Nuuquam  isted,  inquit.  Gracchus  imperii:- set. 
Satis,  imo  etiam  nimium  ;  totius  namque  senatus. consensu  damnatos  mores  <ie- 
fendere  ausus  est  Veram  quod  sequitur.  multoandacius,  muitoque  peiiculosiua ; 
compresses  cnim  }  erseveranti  interrogatione  Laeli,  in  eodem  con  si  an  tiro  grade 
stetlt :  seque  ctiam  hoc,  si  modo  t-racchus  anmrsset.  'acturum  respondit. 

19  Valerius  Maximus,  idem  note  of  Tbyss.  “'libe  ium  et  Caiun), fratircs, ob 
gravissimas  seditioncs,  quas  ia  podulo  suis  legibus  e  citabant  nostes  a  Sccatu 
ruisse  jndicatos.  et  ut/»umque  a  nobiiitate  ccesum,  aiterum  a  Nasico,  alterum  ab 
Opimid.  Quo  tandem  caeso.  Blossius  ad  Arietonicum  regem  confugit.  Brolii 
gatis  deinde  rebus  Aristonici,  mortem  sibi  comivit.” 


242 


ARIS  TONIC  US. 


bo  far  as  that  of  Koine  proper  was  concerned.  He  landed 
at  or  near  Pergamus  and  formed  an  alliance  with  the  princes 
of  the  Pergamenian  kingdom  and  the  kings  of  Bithynia, 
Pontus,  Cappadocia  and  Paphlagonia,  engaged  as  many  na¬ 
tive  soldiers  as  possible  and  with  his  own  army  and  the 
auxiliaries,  made  an  assault  upon  Leucae,  a  strongly  fortified 
city.  A  protracted  siege  must  have  followed ;  for  he  was 
there  fighting  in  the  following  winter,  when  his  consulship 
had  nearly  expired.  He  was  laying  his  plans  to  leave  for 
Borne  when  entrapped  and  surprised  by  the  arrival  of  heavy 
reinforcements  for  Aristonicus.  Crassus  was  forced  to  give 
battle  and  was  totally  defeated.  He  was  himself  surrounded 
by  the  enemy  and  taken  prisoner.  Treated  no  doubt,  with 
severity,  and  discouraged  if  not  distracted,  he  sought  death 
rather  than  disgrace ;  and  one  day,  infuriating  one  of  the 
Thracian  mercenaries  by  a  punch  in  the  eye  with  his  riding 
whip,  the  latter  plunged  his  sword  through  his  body  and 
killed  him  on  the  spot.20  The  head  of  the  dead  Roman 
general  was  cut  off  and  the  body  taken  to  Smyrna  and 
buried. 

In  the  meantime,  at  the  comitia  at  Rome,  M.  Paperna 
had  been  elected  one  of  the  new  consuls  for  the  year  130. 
The  news  of  the  turn  of  military  things  in  Asia  Minor  cast 
an  alarm  at  the  home  government  and  Paperna  was  fitted 
out  and  soon  on  his  way  with  an  army  large  enough  to 
crush  the  forces  of  Aristonicus  at  a  blow.  Arrived  in  Mysia 
and  receiving  the  particulars  of  the  disaster  of  Crassus  at 
Leucae  he  betook  himself  to  the  spot  where  the  slaughter 
occurred.  The  time  of  year  when  he  arrived  must  have 
been  March  or  late  in  February ;  for  Aristonicus  was  yet  at 
winter  quarters. 

Before  the  latter  could  prepare  himself  for  resistance, 
Paperna  fell  upon  him  by  surprise.  A  great  battle  ensued 
in  which  Aristonicus  was  totally  overthrown.  With  the 

20  Valerius  Maximus,  HL.H.  12,  De  Fortitudine:  “Militia  hujus  in  adverso 
oasu  tam  egregius  tainque  virilis  animus,  quarn  relaturus  sum  imperatoris.  P. 
enim  Crassus  cum  Anstonico  bellum  in  Asia  gerens,  a  Thracibus,  quorum  is 
magnum  in  prassidio  habebat,  inter  Eleam  et  Smyrnam  exceptus,  ne  in  ditionem 
ejus  perveniret;  dedecus,  accersita  ratione  mortis,  effugit.  Virgam  enim,  qua 
ad  regendum  equum  usus  fuerat,  in  unius  barbari  oculum  direxit.  Qui  vi  doloria 
accensus,  latus  Crassi  sica  confodit:  dumque  se  uloiscitur,  Romanum  impera- 
torem  majestatis  amisste  turpitudine  liberavit.  Ostendit  fortunae  Crassus,  quam 
indignum  virum  tam  gravi  contumelia  afficere  voluisset;  quoniam  quidem  in- 
lectos  ab  ea  libertati  suae  miserabiles  laqucos  prudenter  partier  aclortiter  rupit, 
datumque  se  jam  Avistonico,  digmtati  suie  reddidit.’’  Cic.  Legg.  III.  19,  4'2: 
Strabo  XII. 


BATTLES  OF  LEUC^E  AND  S  TRA  TONIC  AS.  24:: 


shattered  remnant  of  his  army  he  fled  to  Stratoniose  but 
was  doggedly  followed  by  the  Romans  who  surrounded 
the  place  and  starved  him  to  a  capitulation.  With  most  of 
the  slaves  he  fell  a  prisoner  to  the  Romans. 

Paperna’s  time  being  about  to  expire — the  manoeuvres, 
cross  marching  and  other  vicissitudes  of  the  campaign  hav¬ 
ing  absorbed  the  summer — Aristonicus,  with  a  portion  of 
his  rebel  soldiers  and  officers,  was  conveyed  back  in  irons 
to  Pergamus.  Paperna  pressed  his  design  to  take  his 
distinguished  prisoner,  as  well  as  the  Pergamenian  treasure 
bequeathed  by  Attalus  III,  back  to  Rome,  before  the  arrival 
of  the  new  consul  should  deprive  him  of  his  laurels;  since 
it  was  often  the  habit  in  such  cases,  where  the  counsulship 
lasted  but  a  year,  for  the  new  comer  who  had  done  nothing, 
to  bereave  the  real  winner  of  his  honors,  if  the  latter’s  works 
were  incomplete.  Just  before  Aquilius  the  new  counsul  ap¬ 
peared  on  the  stage,  Paperna  was  taken  sick  at  Pergamus, 
and  died.21 

A  word  remains  to  be  said  as  to  the  probable  fate  of  the 
poor  slaves  and  freedmen  who  formed  the  principle  part  of 
the  army  of  revolution.  Almost  nothing  is  left  us  on  this 
point.  Aristonicus  it  is  known,  was  taken  by  sea  to  Rome 
in  chains  and  strangled  in  the  cell  of  his  prison,  B.  C.  129. 
His  ardent  and  faithful  friend  Blossius  of  Cumae,  seeing  his 
cause,  and  lifework,  thus  ground  to  powder  between  the 
millstones  of  Roman  power,  desired  no  longer  to  live.  In 
his  philosophy  of  human  equality  which  this  defeat  had 
praciically  extinguished,  death  seemed  preferable  to  a  lonely 
existence  and  he  put  an  end  to  himself. 

But  what  of  the  rank  and  file?  It  would  seem  by  the 
silence  itself  of  historians  and  the  otherwise  unaccountable 
delay  of  Paperna  at  the  scene  of  his  victory — delay  which 
brought  his  departure  for  Pergamus  late  into  the  following 
fall  although  the  battle  was  fought  in  the  early  spring — 
nearly  the  entire  summer  had  been  consumed  in  the  horri¬ 
ble  work  of  crucifying  the  unfortunate  working-people  who, 

«  Valerius  Maximus,  III.  iv,  5 :  De  Humili  Loco  Natis.  *•  Non  parvus  consul- 
atus  rubor  M.  Perperna,  utpote  qui  consul  ante  quam  civis ;  sed  in  bello  gerendo 
utilioraliquantoreipub.  Varroneimperatore.  Regem  euim  Aristonicum  cepit, 
Cuassianaeque  stragis  punitor  extitit.  Cum  interim  cujus  vitatriumpliavit,  mora 
Papia  lege  damnata  est.  Namque  patrem  illiu ?.  nihil  adse  pertinentia  civis  Rom¬ 
ani  jura  complexum,Sabelli  judicio  petitum,  redire  in  pristinas  sedes  coegerunt. 
ita  M.  Perpernse  nomen  adumbratum,  falsus  consulatus,  caliginis  simile  imper- 
ium,  caducus  triumphus,  alieua  in  urbe  improbe  peregrinatus  est.” 


244 


ARISTONIQUtk 


through  that  battle,  had  lost  their  cause.”  Could  there 
have  remained  to  us  one  faithful  copy  describing  the  scenes 
of  vengeance23  and  the  dangling  corpses  left  rotting  on  the 
gibbets  of  Stratonicse  in  Carea,  we  should  then  have  a  chron¬ 
icle  of  things  perfectly  harmonious  wiih  the  brutal  nature 


22  Plato,  Laws,  book  IX.  chap.  9,  in  giving  bis  directions  regarding  the  treat- 
ment  of  a  slave  who  is  a  murderer  or  accessory  to  the  crime,  lays  down  the  rule 
that  if  a  freeman  or  citizen  commit  homicide  he  shall  be  turned  over  to  the  mur¬ 
dered  man’s  relatives,  who  have  the  power  to  redeem  him  for  money,  for  good 
previous  conduct,  or  through  the  intercession  of  his  friends.  If  however,  the 
crime  be  committed  upon  a  citizen  by  a  slave,  such  offender  is  to  be  handed 
over  to  the  relatives  who  are  to  torture  or  otherwise  punish  him  without  limit, 
as  they  please:  the  only  proviso  being  that  the  torture  or  punishment  shall  not 
stop  short  of  death.  This  is  Plato’s  state  of  the  “Blessed” — lenient  in  comparison 
with  the  existing  laws — and  as  the  customs  of  the  Greek-speaking  Asians  and 
islanders  were  fully  as  severe  as  those  ol  the  Athenians  and  fellow  countrymen  of 
Plato,  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  anything  less  than  death  could  have  befallen 
the  victims  of  Paperna.  The  following  is  Plato’s  law ;  which  we  give  in  English: 
“  If  a  slave  kills  his  master  in  a  passion,  let  the  kindred  of  the  deceased  use  the 
murderer  in  whatever  manner  they  please,  and  be  clean  of  the  acts,  so  long  a a 
they  do  not  by  any  means  preserve  the  life  of  the  slave.”  But  in  the  same  law 
Plato  rules  that  this  happy  republic  shall  “  let  him  who  kills  his  owu  slave,  un¬ 
dergo  a  purification. ”  (Translation  of  Burges).  Surely  a  human  low-born  was 
considered  inferior  to  a  dog,  for  that  animal  was  often  exempt  by  reason  of  his 
irresponsibility! 

2S  That  this  was  a  genuine  labor  rebellion  there  seem  to  be  no  grounds  for 
doubt.  Dr.  Bucher,  Anjstdnde  der  Unfreien  Arbeiter,  S.  107-8,  iu  the  following 
significant  language  bi’ings  forward  the  question  of  the  prevailing  ideas  of  those 
people,  especially  the  laboring  class,  whose  organizations  were  being  seriously 
threatened  by  these  events;  These  Altalic  societies  had  always  hitherto 
been  not  only  befriended  but  protected  by  the  Pergamenian  kings.  Wa 
quote  the  words  of  Dr.  Bucher  on  the  Dionysian  Communists:  “Di&letztere 
bestand  darin,  das  sich  die  Feiernden  durch  Weihen  nnd  Siihnungen.  durch  Up- 
pige  Tiinze  unter  dem  Klang  der  Flote  und  der  Handpauke  in  sinnheriickenden 
Taumel  und  wilde  Begeisterung  versetzten,  in  der  sie  sich  zur  Gottheit  empor- 
zuschwingen,  Wunder  selien  und  verrichten  zu  konnfcn  meinten.  Wenn  gerade 
damals  diese  Kulte  aucli  im  eigentlichen  Grieclienland  in  einer  grossen  Zahl  von 
geschlossenen  Vereinen  undfrommen  Bruderschaften  gepflegt  wurdeu  (S.  34.  92), 
so  istdas,  was  ihnen  Verbreitung  verscliaffte,  nicht  sowolil  das  Zaubermeereinea 
schrankenlosen  Sinnenrausches,  in  das  sich  ein  unbefriedigtes,  iiberreiites  Ge~ 
schlechtso  gern  versenkt,  als  vielmehrdie  diosen  Genossenschaften  eigenthum- 
liche,  der  socialen  Anschaungsweise  der  Hellenen  fremde  Gleichstellung  aller 
Mitglieder,  mochten  sie  Grieclien  odor  Barbaren,  Manner  Oder  Frauen,  Freid 
Oder  Sklaven  sein.  Darnach  ist  die  Bezeichnung,  BUrger  der  Sonnenstadt,  zu 
beurtheilen;  sie  schied  die  Anhanger  des  Aristonikos  als  die  gliiubige  Gemeinds 
des  Adad  von  den  Unglaubigen,  die  verbriiderten  Armen  und  Elenden  von  Ihrea 
feindlichen  Bedrangern,  wiewirden  von  Eunns  auf  den  Schild  gehobenen  Namcit 
der  ‘  Syrer  ’  demzufolge  aucli  nach  der  religiosen  fjeite  werdeu  zu  nelimen  haben, 
als  das  Kennzeiclien  der  Anhanger  der  Atargatis.”  This  Atargatis  was  the  ver¬ 
itable  goddess  Ceres,  protectress  of  labor,  of  whom  we  have  already  spoken  so 
much  in  our  chapters  on  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries,  and  on  Eunus  and  Athenion 
of  Sicily.  Several  coincident  circumstances  crowd  themselves  into  this  connec¬ 
tion,  to-wit :  This  Is  the  prolific,  original  soil  of  the  early  Christian  church.  Thu 
apostles  must  have  used  the.-e  half-smothered  communes,  ready  in  advance,  per* 
force  their  own  previous  cult,  to  embrace  any  new  idea  that  promised  relief; 
for  the  rebellion  having  failed,  all  the  free  farmers,  mechanics  and  laborers  were 
dragged  down  to  slavery ;  and  their  condition  was,  at  the  beginning  of  our  era 
infinitely  worse  than  it  had  ever  been  before.  Again,  this  very  spot  together 
with  the  adjacent  islands,  is  to  this  day  the  repository  of  innumerable  inscrip¬ 
tions — the  marvel  of  Archaeologists — which  begin  tube  the  subject  ol  coatentio. 
among  scholors  who  are  averse  to  recognizing  euch  a  tiling  an  a  labor  move 
Uient,  and  who  are  consequently  nonplussed  regarding  anything  other  than  thab 


AGAIN  THE  GIBBET. 


245 


of  the  Homans  and  bearing  the  reflex  of  probability,  in  the 
similar  pictures  of  horrors  which,  in  every  other  case  we 
have  described,  were  painted  by  the  historians’  pen,  as  in 
letters  of  blood,  warning  all  workingmen  of  the  ghastly 
wages  of  rebellion.  We  are  left  no  personal  description 
even  of  the  hero  of  this  great  uprising  which  involved  3 
years  of  savage  fighting,  many  drawn  battles  with  the 
Asians,  the  siege  and  taking  of  several  fortified  cities,  and 
the  defeat  and  disastrous  overthrow  of  one  large,  well-gen- 
eraled  and  thoroughly  equipped  consular  army  of  Rome. 
All  we  know  is  the  short  but  numerous  and  fully  corrobo¬ 
rated  statements  given  as  cold  and  feelingless  facts,  by 
chroniclers  of  different  periods,  different  nationality,  senti¬ 
ment  and  language.  To  suppose  this  to  have  been  an  ex¬ 
ception  to  the  deeply  fixed  habit  of  intimidation  and  con¬ 
dign  vengeance  of  the  Romans,  or  that  these  rebel  work¬ 
men  were  treated  with  more  lenity  than  those  who  had  es¬ 
poused  the  cause  of  Eunus  and  Cleon,  or  were  to  esnmse 
in  the  coming  struggles  of  Trypkon  and  Athenion  or  of 
Spartacus  and  Crixus,  would  be  to  admit  that  unheard  of 
departure  of  the  Romans  from  a  fixed  principle.  No;  the 
scenes  of  blood-spilling  which  followed  the  downfall  of  Aris- 
tonicus  were  appalling.  Bat  that  very  blood  was  the  seed 
of  a  sect  which  soon  afterwards,  near  that  very  region,  bore 
fruits  destined  to  destroy  the  Pagan  system  of  slavery  and 
to  rear  a  new  one  based  upon  kindness,  forbearance,  mutual 
love,  brotherhood  and  recognized  equality  of  the  human 
race. 

• 

own  debatable  grounds  regarding  their  origin  as  well  as  their  immense  numbers. 
What  were  they;  who  were  they;  whence  are  they  V  Our  answer  is  that  they 
were  nothing  other  than  labor  societies,  which  lor  hundreds  of  years  had  been 
legalized  at  home,  in  Greece,  in  Egypt.  (See  Herodotus,  H.  164-8  and  177,  which 
makes  it  almost  certain  that  Solon  earned  his  law  from  Eygpt),  everywhere: 
but  which  the  then  existing  anti-labor  hostility  at  Pome,  caused  by  the  re-  d 
of  Roman  land  and  slave  speculators  and  their  politicians,  was  in  a  desperate 
struggle  to  subdue,  by  a  measure  (which  they  finally  passed),  known  in  modern 
times  as  conspiracy  laws.  Alter  this  hostility  set  in,  the  poor  creatures  were 
obliged  iu  conformity  to  some  law,  to  shield  themselves  by  the  cloak  of  ostenta¬ 
tions  religions  rites,  graved  into  their’  inscriptions;  and  it  is  here  that  the  arch 
geologists  are  misled. 


CHAPTER  XL 


ATHENION. 

ENORMOUS  STRIKE  AND  UPRISING  IN  SICILY. 

Second  Sicilian  Labor-War — Tryphon  and  Athenion — Greed 
and  Irascibility  Again  Grapple — The  War  Plan  of  Salvation 
Repeated  by  Slaves  and  Tramps — Athenion,  another  remark¬ 
able  General  Steps  Forth — Castle  of  the  Twins  in  a  Hideou* 
Forest — Slaves  goaded  to  Revolt  by  Treachery  and  Intrigue 
of  a  Politician — Rebellion  and  the  Clangor  of  War — Battle 
in  the  Mountains — A  Victory  for  the  Slaves  at  the  Height* 
of  Engyon — Treachery  of  Gaddseus  the  Freebooter — Decoy 
and  Crucifixions — Others  cast  Headlong  over  a  Precipice — 
The  Strike  starts  up  Afresh  at  Heraclea  Minoa — Murder  of 
Cloni  us  a  rich  Roman  Knight — Escape  of  Slaves  from  his 
Ergastulum — Sharp  Battles  under  the  Generalship  of  Salyius 
— Strife  rekindles  in  the  West — Battle  of  Alaba — The  Pro¬ 
prietor  punished  for  his  bad  Administration — Victory  Again 
Wreathes  a  Laural  for  the  Lowly — A  vast  Uprising  in  West¬ 
ern  Sicily — Athenion  the  Slave  Shepherd — Another  Fanatical 
Crank  of  Deeds — Rushing  the  Struggle  for  Existence — Fierce 
Battles  and  Blood-spilling — What  Ordinary  Readers  of  His¬ 
tory  have  not  heard  of — Fourth  Battle;  Triokala — Meek 
Sacrifices  by  the  Slaves,  to  the  Twins  of  Jupiter  and  Tha¬ 
lia — March  to  Triokala— Jealousy — Great  Battle  and  Car¬ 
nage — Athenion  Wounded — He  escapes  to  Triokala  and  re¬ 
covers — Fifth  Battle — Lucullus  marches  to  the  Working- 
men’s  Fortifications — Batte  of  Triokala — The  Outcasts  Vic¬ 
torious — Lucullus  is  lost  from  View — Sixth  Battle — Servil- 
ius,  another  Roman  General  Overthrown — The  Terrible 
Athenion  Master  of  Sicily  and  King  over  all  the  Working- 
People — Seventh  and  Final  Field  Conflict — Battle  of  Macella 
— Death  of  Athenion — Victory  this  Time  for  the  Romans— 
End  of  the  Rebellion — Satyros,  a  powerful  Greek  Slave  es¬ 
capes  to  the  Mountains  with  a  Force  of  Insurgent* — They 


A  CONGRESS  OF  RUNAWAY  SLA  VES 


S47 


are  finally  lured  co  a  Capitulation  by  Aquillius  who  treacher¬ 
ously  breaks  Faith  and  consigns  them  as  Gladiators  to  Rome 
— They  fight  the  Eighth  and  last  Battle  in  the  Roman  Am¬ 
phitheatre  among  wild  Beasts — A  ghastly  mutual  Suicide— 
The  Reaction — Treachery  of  Aquillius  Punished — The  Gold- 
Workers  pour  melted  Gold  down  his  Throat. 

An  enormous  and  memorable  uprising  or  strike,  both  of 
slaves  and  wage  workers  of  antiquity,  occurred  in  Sicily,  be¬ 
ginning  29  years  after  the  close  of  the  war  of  Eunus,  which 
ended  B.  0.  133,  bringing  the  date  at  B.  C.  104. 

As  in  the  account  we  have  given  of  the  first  servile  war 
of  Eunus,  Achseus  and  Cleon  we  have  followed  the  ad¬ 
mirable  chronology  and  other  points  of  Dr.  Karl  Bucher, 
so  in  this  second  war,  we  follow  the  splendid  elaboration 
of  Prof.  Otto  Siefert,  the  learned  doctor-professor  at  the 
college-gymnasiun  of  Altona.1 

It  has  already  been  observed  that  there  existed  among 
the  ancients,  an  occasional  asylum  where  slaves  and 
freedmen  driven  to  straits  by  the  cruelty  of  others,  could 
in  emergencies,  flee  and  hide  in  security,  under  the  pro¬ 
tecting  aegis  of  a  certain  divinity.  There  existed  such  an 
asylum  in  Sicily.  It  was  located  on  the  sombre  shores  of 
two  small  lakes  westward  from  Syracuse  in  the  interior. 
The  asylum  was  built  in  honor  of  the  Palikoi,  twin  child¬ 
ren  of  Jupiter  and  the  nymph  Thalia.  The  legend  is,  that 
out  from  the  surface  of  one  of  the  lakes  a  hideous  column 
of  sulphurous  waters  sprang  high  into  the  air  like  a  foun¬ 
tain,  causing  an  unendurable  smell  and  a  deafening  roar.2 
Here  stood  a  temple  or  Pagan  convent  and  asylum.  All 
around  was  the  hideous  forest.  In  view  near  by  was  a 
craggy  mountain-steep  where  dwelt  elves  and  urchins, 

1  Siefert,  Sklavtnkritgt  auf  Sicilien,  Altona,  1860,  S.  24-40,  Brochure.  We  quote 
his  note  69,  S.  36,  on  the  sources  of  information  whence  we  derive  our  knowledge 
of  this  uprising,  and  the  duration  of  time  it  occupied,  as  follows  :  “  Quell en 
deeses  zweiten  Sklavenkrieges  sind :  Florus,  Epilom.  Hlstoriarum  Romanarum, 
lib.  HI.  cap.  19 ;  Dion.  Cass.  Exc.  Peiresc.  101,  104 ;  Diodor  XXXVI.  Liv.  LXIX. 
Die  Dauer:  6  piv  oiv  Kara  Si/ceAi'ay  tup  oi/ctrioi'  Trohepos  Si a/xetVa?  err]  cr\e86u  nov 
TiTTapa.  TpayucTjv  eaxe  rrlv  Karaarpo^riv.  M.’ Aquillius  beendigte  ihn  im  J.  99, 
naohdem  er  101  bis  Consul  den  Oberbetehl  iibernommen  hatte  ;  als  der  Kriegaus- 
brach,  war  Llcinius  Nerva  Propraetor,  nach  ihm  kommaudierteu  L.  Lucullus  and 
C.  Servilius:  also  begann  die  Empbrung  im  Laufedes  Jahres  104.  Euseb.  Arm. 
setzt  irrthhmlicb  das  Ende  um  4  Jahre  spater  an  auf  Olympiad.  171,  2,  (95).” 
The  events  being  obscure  though  thrilling  and  often  highly  romantic,  we  shall 
reproduce  verbalum  many  of  the  paragraphs  of  these  and  several  other  highly 
respectable  contributors  to  the  history. 

2  Aristotle  on  Wonders,  57.  Diod.  Sic.  XI.  88-90.  IlaAiKiov  Ai/a^jj.  It  seems  to 
h*ve  been  a  forest  marsh  or  swamp 


m 


ATHENION. 


demons  of  the  mountain  and  of  the  wailing  woods.  Satyrs 
and  wizzards  danced  the  mad  antics  of  fury  to  the  seolian 
strain  of  their  harps;  while  Thalia,  mother-goddess  of  the 
twins,  smiled  on  them  as  their  idyllic  muse;  and  her  guard¬ 
ian  command  hushed  the  frenzied  winds  and  waters,  and 
balmed  their  sulphurous  odors  with  the  breath  of  encour¬ 
agement.  * 

This  was  the  spook  and  goblin-taunted  asylum  where,  in 
the  summer  of  B.  C.  104,  a  large  number  of  naked,  hard- 
worked  and  sweat-begrimed  slaves  gathered  together  for 
the  protection  of  the  institution.  They  were  stragglers 
from  Syracuse  who  had  undergone  an  examination  of  their 
eligibility  to  life  and  liberty. 

What  was  the  deep  motive  which  inspired  so  strange  a 
visitation  as  this,  coming  unheralded  to  the  old  castle  at  the 
swamps  of  the  twins  ? 4  The  workingmen  had,  as  it  were,  of 
their  own  spontaneous  instincts,  centered  there  for  safety! 
A  full  explanation  of  this  is  a  history  of  one  of  the  most 
desperate  and  sanguinary  rebellions  recorded  in  history. 

Marius  was  one  of  the  two  consuls  of  Rome  in  B.  C. 
104.  In  order  to  help  him  carry  out  the  war  measures 
which  had  been  determined  upon,  the  Roman  Senate  had 
authorized  him  to  secure  troops  by  conscription  from 
the  conquered  provinces.  Sicily,  ever  since  the  Punic 

>  Diod.  XI.  89  ’Ewei  fie  wepi  r wv  0ewv  towtwv  ipvr/aOrjptv,  ovk  d£iov  tan  vxpakmeiv 
Ttfr  wepi  to  tepov  apx aion/rd  re  Kai  tijv  amariav  Kai  to  crwvoAov  to  wepi  too?  bvopa£- 
opiv ows  Kpartfpai  iSiwpa.  MvOokoyovat  yap  to  Tepevos  towto  fiia^epeiv  twv  aAAwv 
apXaiOTT) ti  koi  aefiaapy,  woAAwv  ev  avnZ  wapafiofwv  yeyevrjpevwv.  IJpwTov  pe v  yap 
Kparfipes  eitri  T«j>  peyeffei  piv  ov  Kara  wav  peyaAoi,  ainvOiipas  S'  e£aiotows  avajSaAAov- 
Tts  e£  apvOijrov  fivOov  teal  wapawArjatov  IxovTes  rijv  <f>vcnv  rot?  Ae/3rj<ri  tois  wrrb  irvpbt 
WoAAov  Ka tope'vois  «cai(  TO  vfiwp  fiiawwpov  avafia kkovaiv.  'Ep^aoiv  pev  owv  e\ei  to 
ava/3a kkoptvov  vfiwp  wwapyei  Si anvpov,  ov  prjv  a/cpt/3^  tt)v  ewtyvw<riv  eye t  Sia  to 
prjdevarokpav  a\paa0ai  tovtov  TrjAiKavTrjv  yap  exet  Karankr)£iv  ij  twv  wypwv ava/3oArj, 
&?T€  fioxetv  wwb  fleias  tivos  avayKris  yiveaQai  to  awp/3atvov.  T6  pev  yap  vStop  Oeiov 
icaraKopov  ri)v  o<T<f>pr)<riv  «X*lt  to  fie  xa<rpa  /3popov  woAwv  Kai  < frofSepbv  eftrjen,  rb  Si 
fir)  towtwv  wapafio£oTepov,  ovre  vireptKxeirai  to  vypov  oot«  airoAetwei,  nivrjaiv  fie  Kai 
/Biav  pevpaTOs  eis  v\f/os  e£aipoplvwv  ex«  Oavpaatov  ToiavTrjs  fie  fleowperreias  ovcrrjt 
wepi  to  Te'pevos,  oi  peyiaroi  twv  opxwv  evravOa  ovvTtkovvrai,  Kai  tois  imopKrjaaai 
crvvTopos  i)  tow  fiaipoviov  Kokaaif  aKoAowflel*  Tives  yap  Tijs  opdaews  OTeprjflevTes  ttjv 
Ik  tow  Tepevow*  a«/>ofiov  woiovvrai..  MeAaArjs  fi’  overrjs  fieurifiaipovias ,  oi  Tas  apQisfSif- 
rrjtreis  exoi'Tes,  OTav  wwo  tivos  wwepox^s  KaTiaxvwvTai,  rjj  Sia  twv  op/<wv  towtwv 
avmpeati  npiv ovtoi.  "Eari  fie  towto  rb  Ttpevos  Ik  ti vwv  XP°vwv  aavkov  Terr)pr]pevovt 
Kai  tois  aTwxoucriw  otKeTats  Kai  Kwpiots  ayvwpooi  weptwcrrTWKOcri  wokkrjv  rrapex«rai 
florjOeiav.  Tows  yap  eis  towto  Karafyvybvras  ovk  ex^vaiv  efovtrt'aw  oi  fieawoTai  /Stat'wf 
anaytiv,  Kai  p^XP1  towtow  Siaptvovaiv  acrireis  pexpi  av  ewt  Suopurpev ois  <fnkai'0p<*~ 
wots  weioawres  oi  Kvpioi  Kai  fiowres  fiia  twv  opxwv  Tas  wepi  twv  opoAoyiwv  iriareit 
KarakkayOxTi’  Kai  ovfieis  iaropeirai  twv  fiefiwKOTwv  Tois  OtKeVais  vionv  iravryh 
wapa/3as*  owtw  yap  ^  twv  flewv  SeiaiSaipovia  tows  opooavTas  wpfis  tows  fiovAows  wioTowt 
woiec.  ’E<rT4  fie  Kai  tJ>  Tep.evos  ev  wefiiw  dfnptirtl  aeiptvov  xai  oroais  Kai  Tals  aAAaif 
KaTaAvoecriv  tKavws  KtKoapy)pivov. 

4  id.  See  not©  above.  “MvfloAoyowon  yap  tA  rip evos  towto  Siatfttpttv  twv 
aAAwvdpxaifiTr)Ti  xat  ae^aerpw,  troAAwv  ev  awT<p,  wapafio^wv  yeyerjjue'wwv.  ” 


CAUSES  OF  THE  TROUBLE 


249 


wars  had  “been  one  of  these  provinces.  Almost  every 
human  creature  not  possessing  the  blood  of  a  gens  family 
in  this  palaestra  of  suffering  was  now  a  slave.6  The  con¬ 
dition,  bad  enough  before,  was  rendered  worse  if  possible, 
by  the  ghastly  defeat  of  the  200,000  slaves,  in  their  up¬ 
rising  and  war  of  rebellion  under  Eunus  a  generation  be  • 
fore.®  But  it  was  for  Nicomides,  ting  of  Bithynia,  in  far 
off  Asia  Minor,  to  kindle  the  war-fagots.  Bithynia  though 
a  kingdom  of  some  independence  was  nevertheless  a  sat¬ 
rapy  of  Rome;  and  the  order  of  Marius  the  consul,  that 
Nicomides  should  levy  troops  out  of  his  dependency,  for 
the  Roman  army,  could  not  be  carried  out  for  the  reason 
that  the  rapacious  Roman  tax-gatherers  known  as  publi¬ 
cans  7  had  sold  almost  everybody  into  slavery  and  it  was 
degrading,  and  contrary  to  all  law  and  rule  of  antiquity 
except  in  the  severest  emergencies,  to  make  soldiers  of 
slaves.  This  made  the  senates  consulti  a  dead  letter. 
Rome  was  vast  in  actual  dominion  at  this  time  and  any 
law  touching  one  part,  generally  held  good  also  for  any 
other.  It  was  found  on  test  that  also  in  Sicily,  the  major¬ 
ities  were  slaves  and  that,  like  Nicomides,  so  also  Nerva, 
proprietor  over  Sicily  under  Marius,  was  cut  off  from  the 
tope  of  supplying  his  quota  of  troops  for  the  Roman  army. 

What  was  to  be  done  ?  On  an  investigation  it  was  found 
that  most  of  the  workingmen  best  able  to  bear  arms,  were 
slaves.  Again,  their  owners  were  unwilling  to  hear  to 
their  being  set  free.  It  would  be  a  loss  of  property. 
These  clubbed  together  and  pooled  their  money,  being 
politicians  enough  to  know  that  an  offer  of  a  bribe  would 


»  Diodorus  Siculus,  Bibliothecas  Hittorica  Reliance,  XXXVI.  Hi.  1,  3,  8:  “  Kari 
ttjv  ewi  roil?  Kififipovs  row  Maptov  arparetav  ebuttcev  rj  <rvy*cATjTOS  i£ov<rlav  t<3 
M  -n  ck  to)v  rrepav  0aAarrrjs  i0vutv  perarceiintvBat  <rvnii.axia.v-  *0 /u^voCv  Mapio? 
i£incp. «Jr«  wpo*  NucopijSrii'  rbv  Biflvvia?  /SacrtAe'a  wept  |ior)^eia*•  6  awo/cpum' 
tcwKe  tous  irkeiovt  r in'  Bi0u  vu»v  vjto  jut v  St)uooiujvu)V  iiapirayevras  Sovkevetv  if  rai? 
<ircp\tai?.  T»j?  Si  ctvykAjjtov  \J/y j<f>urap«VTjs  oirco?  pr)&eis  <rvfi/iax os  «Aev0epos  iv 
twapxla  (ovkevj)  teal  Trie  rovrutr  ektvffepiatreutt  oi  arparriyoi  wporoiav  iroiutvrcu,  tot* 
•card  rijv  £uceAiar  uk  VTpaniybs  Atxivio?  Nepovas  «xoAov0«>s  tw  S6yp.an  <n>xvoii s  rw v 
Ioi'Aojv  ykevOepotae,  xpureis  irpipei?  irpoBeif,  w?  iv  oAfyai?  ripepate  nkeiove  toiv 
btcraKoaititv  rvyeiv  ttj«  iktvdepiae.  Kai  ijcrav  trdvrtf  *i  tear*  ttjv  vijaov  fiovAtwovre? 
p.ebiutpo i  trpo s  ttjv  i\fw9tpiav.,t 

6  Diodorus,  XXXIV.  frag.  ii.  18. 

•  The  publicani  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  vcctigalarii  as  tax  collectors. 
The  latter  were  workingmen  with  a  plebeian  society.  The  publicans  were 
blooded,  grasping  aristocrats,  belonging  to  the  equites  and  were,  according  to 
Cicero,  the  "floe  equitum  Romanorum,  ornamentum  civitatis,  firmamentum 
rei  public®  ”  (Pro  Plano.),  words  characteristic  of  this  boasting  aristocrat.  The 
publicans  scattered  horror  and  destruction  everywhere.  See  New  Testament,  also 
smith's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  art.  "Publicans.” 


250 


AT  HEN  ION. 


have  th  e  desired  effect  upon  the  propraetor  N erva. 1  N erva, 
it  appears,  took  the  bribe;  but  in  doing  so,  performed 
some  queer  diplomat] cal  gymnastics  in  order  to  glide 
away  from  a  semblance  of  blame  and  thus  unintentionally 
set  the  whole  island  into  an  uproar.  He  had  first  pub¬ 
lished  a  proclamation  requiring  all  slaves  who  believed 
themselves  entitled  to  emancipation,  to  come  and  receive 
their  liberty.  This  was  under  a  new  law  just  enacted  by 
the  senate  at  Rome.  The  law  was  suited  to  the  emergency 
and  was  indited  to  read  that  subjects  must  no  longer  be 
seized  by  the  publicans  and  sold  for  taxes;  and  that  those 
who  had  been  thus  sold  should  be  entitled  to  appear  be¬ 
fore  city  officials  of  their  vicinity  and  receive  their  liberty.9 

Now  what  was  the  governor  to  do?  The  slaves  to  the 
number  of  800,  having  become  aware  of  this  by  the  pro¬ 
clamation  actually  calling  them  in  and  eager  for  liberty, 
had  escaped  from  their  masters,  probably  by  running 
away  and  were  already  thronging  around  the  propraetor 
in  impatient  expectancy  of  the  promised  papers  of  eman¬ 
cipation,  hoping  to  join  the  Roman  army  and  thus  become 
free  and  honored  men.  Alas !  No  such  happiness  was 
in  reserve  for  them.  The  miserable  liar,  ready  to  grasp 
his  bribe  even  at  the  expense  of  sullying  conscience  with 
malfeasance  in  office,  when  the  banded  slave  owners 
thickened  around  him  pressing  on  all  sides,  issued  another 
edict  to  the  slaves  advising  them  to  go  back  to  their  mas¬ 
ters  with  the  treacherously  perfidious  supplement  that  he 
would  stand  between  them  and  all  harm. 

Struck  down  with  horror,  the  poor  wretches,  feeling  that 
in  their  surreptitious  escape  they  had  partly  taken  the 
initiative  in  procuring  their  own  freedom  and  knowing 
the  dreadful  extent  of  vengeance  which  awaited  them  on 
their  returning  to  the  now  exasperated  masters,  betook 
themselves  as  stated,  to  the  citadel  of  the  twins  at  the 
lakes  of  the  Palikoi.  And  well  they  might;  if  we  may  be¬ 
lieve  the  words  of  Florus  who  of  all  other  writers  had  the 
least  sympathy  for  the  slaves  in  rebellion.10  Yet  Florus 

s  This  Btatemsnt  is  made  on  the  strength  of  Dion  Cassius  (frag.  101),  who  in¬ 
timates  as  much  in  speaking  of  the  sums  pooled  by  the  slave  owners. 

'J  Diod.  Sic.  Billiotheca  XXXVI,  frag.  iii.  2.  as  quoted  in  note  5,  q.  v. 

10  Florus,  Epit.  Ret  urn  Romano-rum,  lib.  III.  cap.  XIX.  S.  1,  speaking  of  Wie 
first  servile  war  says:  Utcuiuque  etsi  cum  sociis  (nefasl)  cum  liberis  tamen  et 
ingenuis  dimicatum  est.  This  word  nefus  characterizes  the  struggle  as  a  blas¬ 
phemy. 


THE  SLA  VES  BREAK  LOOSE.  FIRST  FIGHT.  251 


describes  them  as  prisoners  in  chains.  All  oyer  Sicily 
there  existed  prisons  called  in  Latin  er  gas  tula,  in  Greek 
ergasteria,  where  slaves  were  kept  in  custody  over  night  in 
irons.  Some  were  forced  to  work  in  these  dens;  but 
most  of  them  were  marched  out  in  the  early  morning  to 
their  grinding  labors  on  the  farms.11  Diming  the  servile 
war  20  years  before,  Eunus  attacked  these  horrid  slave- 
pens  and  set  fully  60,000  of  the  manacled  slaves  at  liberty.11 
These  immediately  joined  his  great  army  of  revolution, 
swelling  it  to  such  an  extent  that  the  slaves  were  victori¬ 
ous  in  many  battles. 

What  took  place  at  the  asylum  in  the  forest  of  Jupiter’s 
twins  we  are  but  imperfectly  told.  They  conspired;11 
though  as  in  the  case  of  every  strike  of  the  ancient  slaves, 
so  also  here,  our  histories  are  riddled  to  fragments.  But 
enough  has  been  preserved  from  the  ruthless  vandal’s 
hand  to  make  clear  what  we  shall  with  confidence  relate. 
A  most  bloody  and  devastating  war  soon  burst  forth, 
spreading,  in  a  few  days  over  nearly  all  of  Sicily. 

There  is  a  town  now  called  Scillato  but  in  those  days 
the  Sicilian  Greeks  knew  the  place  by  the  name  of  Ancyle.14 
Here  a  massacre  announced  and  kindled  the  first  flames 
of  war.  Thirty  slaves  organized  under  a  leader  named 
Oarius,  broke  chains  in  the  night,  set  upon  their  masters 
and  murdered  them  in  their  sleep.  Later  in  the  same 
night,  probably  through  the  action  of  the  first  thirty,  200 
more  slaves  were  delivered  from  their  shackles,  or  at  least 
from  bondage,  and  the  whole  neighborhood  was  made 
hideous  by  scenes  of  terror  which  they  enacted.  It  was 
at  the  slopes  of  the  Nebrode  heights  not  far  from  the  town 
of  Engyion.  A  fastness  crowned  the  height  which,  like 

11  Flor.  19,  “  Hie  ad  cultum  agri  frequenta  ergastula,  catenatique  cultores.” 

12  Idem.  c.  0  “Hoc  miraculum  primum  duo  miilia  ex  obviis,  mox  jure  belli 
refractis  ergastulie,  sexaginta  amplius  millium  fecit  exercitum.”  See  war  of 
Eunus  chap.  IX. 

13  Diod.  XXXVI.  frag.  ill.  3.  Dind.  says:  Oi  5’  «V  a£i<«>paa-i  crwSpap.6vT«% 
wapeKaAovp  top  <TTparr]ybv  airoar^vai  Tavrrjs  tjjs  err tfioAqs.  'O  S'  elre  xprjp.a<r t 
neiaOeis  etT«  \apm  SovAevaar,  p.iv  tuv  Kpenjpiux'  tovt<ov  anovSijs  awe<7T7j,  nal 
rove  irpofiovraf  eirl  ru>  Tv\tlv  ttjs  eAevOepias  iirurAijTrwv  sis  tow?  iSiov s  Kvpiovs 
rrpoieraTTep  eiravanrTpe<t>ei.v .  Oi  Si  SovAoi  <7i/a,Tpa</>ei'Tes,  itai  to >v  2vpaKOV<ru>u  a.7raA- 
AayeVrt?,  /cai  Kara$ vyderes  eis  to  tu>v  IIo.AlkCoi/  reperos,  SitAtLAovv  irpos  aAAtjAovf 
vnep  d7ro<7Tao-ea>s.  Nothing  however,  can  be  clearer  than  this  fragment  of  Dio¬ 
dorus.  The  slaves,  screened  from  harm  by  the  hospitable  old  temple,  had  lei¬ 
sure  to  organize  their  rebellion  on  a  piodigious  scale,  which  they  accomplished 
with  effect. 

14  Siefert,  Slciliscke  Sklavenauptdnde,  S.  80,  note  71,  point*  to  Cicero,  Terras, 
Ill.  45,  who  writes  it  “  Incihenses,"  and  concludes :  “die  St*dt  1st  an t  dam  Ns- 
brodengebirge  in  der  Nahe  von  Enjorion  su  sucheu/’ 


A  TEENION. 


*52 

tlm  asylum  of  the  Pa:?Jcoi  offered  the  slaves  seountv.  Here 
they  for  tilled  themselves,  received  allies,  sent  strong  and 
fearless  scouts  to  cut  the  bands  and  set  their  fellows  free 
and  thus  in  a  few  days  so  augmented  their  force  that  by 
the  time  the  Roman  praetor  made  his  appearance  with  an 
army  to  put  down  the  emeut,  they  were  strong  enough  to 
offer  front. 

This  first  organized  resistance  of  the  slaves  was  how¬ 
ever,  destined  to  meet  with  disaster  through  treachery. 
A  man  named  0.  Titinius  Gaddseus  probably  of  Roman 
and  possibly  of  noble  stock,  prowled,  in  those  days,  about 
this  country,  in  the  capacity  of  a  marauder.  He  was  an 
escaped  convict,  having  a  considerable  time  before  been 
condemned  to  death  for  certain  crimes.  With  a  banditti 
of  freebooters  of  Ins  ilk,  he  stole  about  at  night,  hiding  by 
day  in  the  inaccessible  fastnesses  of  the  mountain  and  thus 
by  robbery  and  deceit,  gained  a  precarious  living,  always 
on  the  alert  tor  an  opportunity  and  always  destitute  of 
conscience.  The  proprietor,  Licinius  Nerva  who  was  the 
cause  of  the  disaffection  among  the  slaves,  sought,  and 
probably  by  promises  of  exoneration  secured,  the  alliance 
of  this  freebooter  who  subtly  set  about  making  the  friend¬ 
ship  of  the  slaves  then  watching  an  opportunity  to  de¬ 
stroy  the  militia  which  Nerva  had  levied  to  put  down  the 
trouble.  Gaddyeus  succeeded  in  decoying  the  slaves  into 
an  ambush  and  by  arrangement  turned  the  poor  wretches 
over  to  the  Roman  governor  who  crucified  some  of  them 
and  others  he  killed  by  casting  headlong  from  a  high 
precipice  to  be  dashed  to  jelly  upon  the  rocks.16 

Nerva  now  believed  the  trouble  to  be  over.  He  was 
even  foolish  enough  to  disband  his  forces,  consisting 
mostly  of  militia  whom  he  discharged  from  further  ser¬ 
vice  and  sent  to  their  homes.  But  the  slaves  seem  to 
have  been  on  the  alert;  perhaps  encouraged  by  the  utter 
want  of  generalship  shown  by  Nerva.  The  question  now 
arises  in  the  mind  of  the  reader  how  poor,  enslaved,  ignor¬ 
ant  creatures  many  of  whom  were  in  fetters,  could  have  been 
able  to  rebel  at  all;  much  less  keep  a  correspondence  with 
others  sufficiently  to  know  what  was  going  on  at  different 
points.  The  answer  must  be,  that  they  felt  themselves  in 

14  Diod  XXXVI.  lit  6^  Jin.  Dind.  rutv  S'  anoarariov  61  juiv  u.a\6n.tv oi  Kara- 
ot  Se  rt)y  airo  rijf  aAtucr«u>$  SeSiores  Tipwpi'av  eavrovs  icaTaKpiJpvurav. 


THROWN  HEADLONG  FROM  A  PRECIPICE.  2ot 


a  desperate  condition  and  combined  their  entire  energy 
and  intelligence  to  greater  effect  than  may  be  naturally 
imagined.  Men  engaged  in  such  desperate  adventures 
think  nothing  of  turning  night  into  day;  and  like  the 
similar  case  with  us  in  recent  days,  they  may  have  had 
secret  outposts  and  means  of  communication. 

At  any  rate,  the  Roman  general  had  hardly  disbanded 
his  force  when  the  war-cloud  gathered  in  another  part  of 
the  island.  A  rich  Roman  knight  named  P.  Clonius,19 
who  possessed  estates,  such  as  were  celebrated  in  history 
as  the  latif undid ,  was  murdered  by  his  slaves  near  Hera- 
clea  Minoa  on  the  southeastern  coast  of  Sicily.  This  mur¬ 
der  was  perpetrated  by  a  band  of  80  desperate  men  who 
concocted  tin  ir  conspiracy  during  the  lull  aud  broke  from 
the  ergastida  helping  each  other  by  signal,  to  free  them¬ 
selves.  The  number  in  the  revolt  rapidly  increased.  The 
governor,  Licinius  Nerva,  was  now  in  a  helpless  condition, 
without  an  army.  The  slaves  rushed  in  every  direction, 
freeing  each  other,  and  pitched  tent  on  the  banks  of  the 
river  Alaba  ”  coursing  at  the  foot  of  the  Lions  Caprianus, 
to  the  number  of  over  2,000  men.  This,  however,  occu¬ 
pied  some  time,  during  which  Nerva  succeeded  in  mus¬ 
tering  a  considerable  force  which  ho  marched  or  trans¬ 
ported  by  water  to  the  scene  of  war. 

The  distance  from  Syracuse  to  Heraclea  Minoa  is  not 
far  from  95  miles  in  a  straight  line  westward  but  follow¬ 
ing  the  road  or  the  shortest  route  by  sea  around  the 
Portus  Odysseao  and  past  Agrigentum,  it  could  not  be 
less  than  130  miles.1*  To  convey  his  army  and  impedimen  ta 
thither  and  fix  his  headquarters  at  Heraeleia,  occupied  so 
much  time  that  it  must  have  been  toward  the  spring  of 
B.  C.  103,  before  anything  serious  transpired. 

On  a  favorable  position,  the  two  adversaries  drew  up 
in  line  of  battle.  The  name  of  the  Roman  commander 
was  M.  Titinius,w  whose  forces  summed  up  the  hugest 

18  Plod.  XXXVI.  iv.  1,  init:  “T oir  5$  <npnTuaTu>v  np'os  to  oiroAv- 

9«vt(ov,  f/i <ot>  rive?  airayyeWoi'Tes  on  lloirAtoi'  KAdmov,  yevG/ouKH'  iarrea  ’Pw/Aauor, 
e/ravacrravre?  oi  SouboL  /caTecr<f>a£av  oyScuJ/coi'Ta  oi're?.  koI  bn  ir\i]6o<>  dyetpov<n.M 

17  Diod  XXXVI  4.  “  f<be£y)<;  S’  eycorro  r a>v  dia\t\LU>v  ovk  «Aar row.”  This 
force  of  2.i 'no  men  was  collected  within  7  days. 

ltf  In  reiat  on  to  Nervn’s  route  Diodorus  says  nothing. 

'«  1  iod.  XXX Vi.  4.  3.  Dind.  says:  Map-voe  Tm,-;<n.  Nevertheless  we  ar» 
constrained  to  thiuk  Titinius  the  same  person  who  had  betrayed  them  ,  i.  «.  TUitt 
lus  Guduu  us 


254 


A  THENION. 


number  that  the  Roman  praetor,  with  the  addition  of  600 
men  drawn  from  the  fortress  of  Enna,  was  able  to  muster. 
On  the  whole,  relying  on  the  superior  armor  and  other 
equipments  of  his  own  men,  compared  with  the  destitute 
condition  of  the  workingmen,  who  depended  upon  butch¬ 
er-knives,  sickles,  clubs,  slings  and  whatever  they  could 
grasp,  the  Romans  seem  to  have  had  the  advantage.  But 
the  rebels  besides  being  full  of  that  courage  which  des¬ 
peration  inspires  and  anxious  to  meet  a  hated  foe,  had 
also  the  most  advantageous  position.  No  details  of  this 
battle  have  come  to  us  further  than  that  it  was  a  fierce 
and  bloody  encounter;  the  slaves  fighting  desperately  fol¬ 
lowing  charge  with  charge,  dealing  such  ponderous  blows 
against  their  adversary,  composed  partly  of  raw  militia, 
that  the  latter  gave  way,  or  were  killed  on  the  spot.  The 
rout  of  the  Romans  now  became  general.  A  panic  seized 
them.  They  cast  away  their  arms  and  ran  for  life.  The 
slaves  grasping  their  weapons,  pursued  and  hacked  those 
whom  they  could  to  pieces,  scoring  a  signal  victory. 

The  strike  which  hitherto  had  manifested  itself  in  mur¬ 
muring  and  an  occasional  outburst,  now  assumed  warlike 
proportions.  Section  after  section  of  the  island  broke 
away  from  their  masters  and  joined  the  gathering  army. 
The  force  under  drill,  soon  after  the  battle  at  the  Alaba 
river  is  reported  to  have  been  6,000 20  strong;  all  well 
equipped  with  the  best  of  arms  which,  they  had  taken  from 
the  enemy.  Greatly  encouraged  by  this  first  victory,  they 
set  about  organizing  in  earnest.  More  fettered  slaves  who 
were  working  in  chains  were  cut  loose  from  the  er gas  tula 
or  work-prisons.  These  glad  to  escape,  joined  the  rank 
and  file,  and  being  the  most  desperate  and  brave  made 
reliable  soldiers  in  the  insurrection. 

A  mass  meeting  was  now  called  for  the  election  of  a 
leader.  There  was  a  certain  character  who  had  signalized 
himself  as  a  man  of  great  energy,  named  Salvius;  This  man 
had  been  the  principal  in  the  movement  which  had  con¬ 
summated  the  assassination  of  the  Roman  knight  Clonius, 
at  Heracleia  Minoa  ending  in  the  defeat  of  the  proprietor 

20  Dio d.  XXXVI.  iv.  4:  "Kai  no\\S>v  ko.6’  f^p.ipav  d<f>i<xrapi«»'toi/,  crvvTOfxov 
<ai  napd8o£ov  e\ai udai'ov  avfcrjcrLv,  <«>?  ev  oAiyais  »jp.e'pais  jrAeious  yevea&iu 

’Ore  5rj  Kai  eis  «(c/cArjcrtav  avveKdovref  Kai  /3ovA rjs  irpOTe^etVtj?  irpwro» 

et'Aavro  /SacriAea  t'ov  bvop.a$6p.evov  SaAoinov  Sokovvto.  rijs  tepoaKoru'a?  e/urrcipo* 
ii-at  Kai  Tai?  yvvaiKeiait  deais  avAop.ai'Ovi'Ta.” 


BATTLE  OF  THE  A  LA  BA.  SAL  VI  US. 


255 


Licinius*1  Nerva  at  the  battle  of  the  Alaba  river  Like 
Eunus,  the  slave-king  of  Enna  in  the  war  of  the  strikers, 
which  had  ended  29  years  before,  he  was  a  prophet,  a 
worker  of  incantations,  a  flute-player,  and  dispensed  super¬ 
natural  and  wonderful  doings  among  the  credulous  slaves 
and  freedmen.  A  slave  himself,  of  superior  bearing  and 
gift  of  command,  he  was  elected  by  acclamation  as  king 22 
King  Salvius  immediately  on  assuming  power,  turned  his 
attention  to  organization  and  order.  He  taught  his  wild 
and  often  gross-mannered  men  that  success  does  not  come 
from  savagery  and  rapine  nor  from  destruction  of  property 
by  laying  waste  the  country  and  its  fruits;  and  brought 
them  to  understand  that  an  unbridled  career  is  danger¬ 
ous.  The  army  was  divided  into  three  divisions,  under 
his  three  picked  warriors  as  commanders,  and  marched 
off  at  different  angles  into  the  country  with  the  order  to 
reunite  at  a  given  point,  at  a  given  time,  bringing  with 
them  provisions.  The  plan  succeeded  exactly.  At  the 
appointed  time  and  place  the  three  divisions  again  united, 
having  collected  from  the  dairy  and  stock  farms  so  large 
a  quantity  of  sheep,  cattle,  horses,  grain  and  other  sup¬ 
plies  that  the  question  of  want  for  the  army  wThioh  had 
also  greatly  increased,  was  settled  for  a  long  time  to  come. 

Great  numbers  of  horses  had  come  into  the  hands  of 
Salvius.  A  force  of  cavalry  was  organized  2,000  strong, 
undoubtedly  well  equipped  The  army  grew  to  the  ma¬ 
jestic  proportions  of  20,000  foot  besides  the  cavalry — in 
all  22,000  combatants.**  With  activity  this  force  was 
drilled  to  discipline  and  fitted  for  receiving  the  approach¬ 
ing  Roman  army.  King  Salvius  after  completing  prepa¬ 
rations  for  a  campaign,  set  off  on  a  march  toward  Mor- 
gantion  situated  on  the  coast  of  Sicily,  near  the  mouth  of 
the  river  Symethus.  Morgan tion  was  a  fortified  city  with 
a  citadel;  and  had  been  the  seat  of  a  terrible  conflict  be¬ 
tween  the  slaves  and  the  Romans  in  the  war  of  Ennus.*4 
The  rebel  chieftain  hurriedly  conveyed  his  large  army 


®  Diodorus,  IV.  4.  characterizes  Salvias  as  a  Slave  who  knew  the  arts  ol 
prophecy  and  could  play  the  flute  or  horn.  He  was  a  favorite  with  women  and 
possessed  the  mysterious  arts  of  slight  of  hand.  See  note  20,  Jin. 

22  Siefert,  Sicilische  SklavenJceiege ,  S.  27.  ‘  Indess  zeigte  Salvius  tk-ch  eine 
grhssere  Befahignng  fur  seine  Stellung.  als  sich  nach  seinem  friihe»*v  Lebe» 
erwarten  leiss.” 

23  Diod  XXXVI.  frag,  iv,  §§  7,  7.  8.  Dind. 

*4  ee  chap  ix, ,  on  the  Servile  war  or  Eunus. 


256 


ATHENION. 


thither,  a  distance  from  Heracleia  Minoa  of  about  one 

hundred  miles. 

The  Roman  praetor  knowing  that  greater  mischief  was 
meant,  had  in  the  meantime  collected  an  army,  partly  from 
Italy,  partly  from  Sicily,  as  well  as  of  stragglers  who  had 
survived  the  last  disaster — in  all,  amounting  to  10,000 
men.  With  this  force  he  marched  day  and  night  in  or¬ 
der  to  arrive  at  Morgantion  before  the  rebels  could  reach 
the  place.  This  he  appears  to  have  succeeded  in  doing 
but  found  nobody  but  the  women  and  children  of  the 
slaves;  for  the  men,  aware  of  the  near  approach  of  Salvius 
and  his  army  had  escaped  to  a  hiding  haunt  which  they 
frequented,  by  a  gate  or  other  means  of  egress  through  the 
walls,  during  a  dark  night.  Salvius  now  determined  to 
give  his  enemy  battle.  He  led  his  troops  in  solid  phalanx 
and  good  order  against  the  praetorian  army,  making  the 
attack  with  such  a  shock  as  to  stagger  him  by  the  onset. 
It  appears  from  a  remark  made  by  Diodorus  that  the  praetor 
must  have  had  slaves  as  a  part  of  his  force;  for  Salvius, 
taking  advantage  of  some  opportunity,  gave  the  soldiers 
of  the  Roman  army  to  understand  that  they  would  be  freed 
if  they  threw  down  their  arms.  As  a  result  the  Roman 
troops  began  to  throw  away  their  weapons  and  save  them¬ 
selves  by  flight.  A  panic  was  thus  created  and  the  rout 
became  general.  Salvius  pursued  and  succeeded  in  tak¬ 
ing  4,000  Italians  and  Sicilian  Greeks,  while  600  were 
killed  on  the  spot.28  Large  quantities  of  arms  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  again  victorious  rebels,  together  with  all  the 
munitions  of  war  that  were  stored  in  the  magazines.  The 
victory  before  Morgantion  was  complete.  Quantities  of 
armor  and  campaign  equipments  were  taken,  together 
with  provisions  for  maintaining  the  siege  of  the  city  itself. 
Certain  it  is,  that  after  the  battle,  the  Roman  praetor  re¬ 
tired  within  the  fortress  of  Morgantion  with  his  remain¬ 
ing  troops,  and  by  promising  the  slaves  the  boon  of  lib- 

26  Diod,  XXX VI.  iv.  7.  Oi  S'  avoordrai  i£aC<f>vi)s  dvrm&ip.iyoi,  xd  vvtp- 
fiefioi'  rrjv  a Taaiv  e\0VTe^  <f)vrjs  avTemdefjLeyoi.,  Kai  vnepSefioy  tt\v  <rrdatv  e^owTef, 
/3tcu'w?  re  enippa£ avres,  eitdvs  ejri  rrpoTeprjp.aTO?  ^<rav  oi  Si  tow  <rrparr)yov  irpamjaa* 
wp'os  <$>vyr\v,  Tow  Se  fiaaiKeM?  tui'  anoaraTobv  Ktjpv yp.a  rroir)<rap.eyov  /xijSera  Kreiveur 
tcov  to.  ojrAa  ptirroui'Twi',  oi  7rAetoroi  pinTouvres  e<f>ev yov.  Kai  tovtio  t<£  t^ottco  xa* 
Ta<rrpaTjjyj}<ras  row?  jroAepuous  6  2aAovios  tjjw  Te  Trape/u./BoArjw  awe/cTij<raro  xcu  iropifid- 
tjrov  wixrjv  aireyeyKafieyoi ,  jroAAu<v  Sn\i>}y  e/cvptevaev,  ‘AireOavov  Si  ey  tjj  /tag}?  t£>w 
’iTaAiwTwt'  re  Kai  £t./eeAa>i'  0v  jrAeiovs  e£ axoaiuy  Sia  rrjy  tow  Kijpvy/xaros  0iA«»^pwria.«, 
idXuHray  Se  rrepi  TeTpaxisxtAiov?,’’ 


BATTLE  BEFORE  MORGA  NT  I  ON. 


257 


erty,  which  indeed  all  those  poor  creatures  were  lighting 
for  without  really  knowing  how,  inspired  them  to  such 
valiant  resistance  against  their  fellow  slaves  outside,  that 
for  a  long  time  no  progress  was  made  by  Salvius  in  get¬ 
ting  possession  of  the  city  and  Dr.  Siefert  is  in  doubt 
whether  he  accomplished  it  at  all.26  But  this  doubt  pro¬ 
ceeds  from  a  misunderstanding  of  the  historical  fragment 
of  Diodorus,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  actual  genius 
of  this  theme.  Diodorus  who  so  long  has  been  misun¬ 
derstood,  knew  perfectly  well  what  he  was  saying  when 
he  told  us  that  Salvius  when  his  army  had  grown  to  be 
80,000  strong  sacrificed,  after  the  conquest  of  Morgantion, 
to  the  twin  heroes — the  very  immortals  who  had  protected 
him  a  short  time  before,  at  a  short  distance  from  there,  in 
the  Asylum  of  the  poor  and  unprotected  slaves.  At  their 
forest  asylum,  amid  the  roar  of  waters  and  the  fumes  of 
sulphur  and  gloom  and  loneliness,  these  twin  sons  of  Ju¬ 
piter  and  Thalia  had  entertained  and  protected  them  with 
the  a?gis  of  divinity  and  it  was  now  in  order,  at  the  mo¬ 
ment  of  conquest  and  victory  to  sacrifice  to  them  in  pur¬ 
ple  and  splendors,  in  repayment.2’ 

Another  reason  why  the  Boman  praetor  lost  Morgan¬ 
tion  is  that  he  had  been  treacherous  to  the  slaves  under 
his  command,  promising  them,  as  we  have  stated,  that  if 
they  fought  bravely  against  their  fellows  outside,  they 
should  have  their  freedom.  This  they  did  valiantly  but 
the  perfidious  governor  again  lied  them  out  of  this  much 
longed  for  and  expected  boon.  Whereupon  accepting  the 
offer  of  Salvius  to  spare  all  who  would  throw  down  their 
arms,  they  joined  their  fellow  rebels.28  Thus  again  the 
Homans  were  forced  to  open  their  eyes  and  behold  Sicily, 

Siefert,  Sicilische  Sklavenkricgc,  S.  27,  “Morgantion  aber  zu  nehmengo- 
lang  ihm  vorerst  doch  nicht.”  “  Ob  in  Folge  dessen  die  Stadt  fiel,  ist  au«  der  er- 
haltenen  Berichten  night  mit  zuverlSssigkeit  ersichtlich.’’ 

27Diod.  XXXVI.  vii.  1.  naAucot.”  The  exact  words  which  seem  to  have 
been  misunderstood,  are ;  “  ‘O  Si  ttjv  MopyavTiviji/  noXiopKriaat  XaAouiov,  iirtSpapav 
rr]v  x<t>pav  p ixpi  tov  Aeovrivov  neSiov,  f)&poi<rev  avrov  rb  avpirav  arjtArevpa, 
imXenTOVt  at /Spa?  ovk  eAarrovs  to>v  rpispvpitav,  /cai  dvtras  rois  naAwcoif  ijpcocri, 
tovtoiv  pi v  avi&r]Kt  piav  rtov  akovpytav  nepinop<f>vpu>v  <ttoAtji'  xapuroypia  T iff  ritcijt, 
avrb?  S’  a yayopeveras  iavrbv  /3a<riAe'a  Tpycfrtov  pev  vn'o  tu>v  anocrTaTtbv  nposyyopevtTO. 

The  lauguage  is  unmistakable.  Still  Dr.  Siefert  thus  muses :  Dochkonnen  sich 
diese  Worte  auch  auf  den  Sieg  iiber  Licinius  Nerva  bezlehen,  und  so  Jste3  wohL 
da  iroAcoptoj <ras  nicht  fuglich  fur  cKjroAiopKrjaa?  genommen  werden  kann,”  But 
the  whole  phrase  reads  plainly  that  Salvius  was  master  of  the  situation 

28  Siefert,  Slcilishe  SklavenJcriege ,  S.  27.  “  Unbegreiflicher  Weiso  vereagte 
der  Praetor  diesen  Versprechen  die  Bestatigung  und'  trieb  dadurch  den  grbsstea 
Thell  dieser  Tapferen  in  das  Lager  der  Aufriihrer.” 


258 


A  THEN1  ON. 


their  “  granary  of  the  world,’’  south  and  east,  in  the  hands  of 
surging,  pitiless  slaves  in  the  terrible  attitude  of  rebellion. 

Lilybmum  and  Segesta  or  the  old  iEgesta  stood  on  the 
Mediterranean  sea;  the  former  at  the  western  extremity, 
the  latter  northward  in  the  sinus  Segestanus ,  25  miles 
apart.  This  new  scene  of  the  slave  rebellion  opens  150 
miles  or  more  from  that  of  the  battle  grounds  of  Morgan- 
tion.  N o  newspapers,  no  railroads,  no  telegraphs  to  con¬ 
vey  news  particulars  or  rumors  of  events.  How  then, 
in  a  reign  of  suppression  and  terror  among  maddened 
masters  with  their  whips,  chains,  ergastula  and  crucifixion- 
gibbits  and  their  optional  use,  could  all  the  slaves  of  Sicily, 
even  those  of  the  farthest  extreme,  have  known,  under¬ 
stood,  reciprocated  with  each  other,  midst  these  awful 
tumults  of  self- enfranchisement? 

On  one  of  those  western  farms  of  Sicily  there  writhed 
in  the  fetters  of  compulsory  labor,  a  man  named  Athenion 
— a  slave,  yet  born  with  all  the  proud  and  lofty  impulses 
of  manhood.  Floras  who,  unlike  Diodorus,  spoils  his  his¬ 
tories  with  unkind  allusions,29  unmindful  of  the  desperate 
acts  he  himself  might  have  resorted  to  under  similar  treat¬ 
ment,  speaks  bitterly  of  him  but  in  his  words  of  vitupera¬ 
tion  gives  us  valuable  facts.  This  man’s  name  was  Athe¬ 
nion.  He  was  a  Cilician  by  birth ; 30  but  having  a  supe¬ 
rior  bearing  and  faculty  of  command,  had  charge  of  200 
herdsmen  on  one  of  the  great  stock  farms  of  that  produc¬ 
tive  region  of  Sicily.  His  family  and  those  of  his  men  and 
fellow  slaves  were  kept  at  work  in  the  slave  pens  or  ergas¬ 
tula,  as  distinctly  stated  by  Floras.  Athenion  and  his 
men  over  whom  he  officiated  as  boss  or  overseer,  feeling 
that  a  time  had  come  to  strike  the  blow  for  liberty  and, 
as  we  are  obliged  to  surmise,  posted  regarding  the  doings 
of  King  Salvius,  far  to  the  other  extremity  of  Sicily,  de¬ 
termined  to  make  a  desperate  trial  to  obtain  freedom  from 
servility  and  degradation.*1  He  imparted  his  plan  to  a 


29  Ep'torn  ITT.  19.  ‘ ‘  Athenlo  pastor,  interfecto  domino,  familiam  ergastulo 
liberatam  sub  signis  ordinat.  Ipse  yeste  purpurea,  argenteoque  baculo  et  regium 
in  morem  fronte  redimita,  non  minorem,  quam  iile  fanaticus  prior,  conflat  exen* 
citum ;  acriusque  niulto,  quasi  et  ilium  vindicaret,  vicos,  castella,  oppida  diripl- 
ens,  in  dominos,  in  servos  infestius,  quasi  in  transfugas  sgeviebat.” 

30  “Athenio  Oilex  ”  See  Dind.  paraphrase  of  Diod.  XXXVI.  v.  1.  Cilicia 
was  on  the  borders  of  Syria  in  Asia  Minor  but  a  few  mlies  from  Palestine.  He 
bailed  from  near  the  stage  of  the  greater  movemeat  100  years  later. 

«  Diod.  XXXVI.  y.  1-4. 


WARS  KINDLE  IN  WEST  SICILY. 


few  of  his  men.  The  result  was  that  at  an  appointed  time 
the  200  slaves  attacked  their  owners — two  millionaire 
brothers — killed  them,  ran  and  cut  the  fetters  from  their 
families  in  the  slave-prison,  set  them  free,  everywhere 
sounding  the  bugles  of  rebellion,  and  set  about  arming 
and  drilling  the  men  who  came  running  into  the  quarters 
from  all  directions,  begging  for  enrollment.  In  five  days 
there  were  more  than  a  thousand  slaves  under  arms,  with 
Athenion  as  leader. 

Athenion  was  another  man  of  wonders,  and  he  now  be¬ 
gan  to  assume  the  unnatural  powers  of  Messiah,  king,  for¬ 
tuneteller,  star-gazer  and  prophet.  The  result  of  such 
manoeuvres  of  course,  was  to  confirm  the  ignorant  slaves  at 
his  command,  in  the  belief  that  he  was  initiated  into  the 
favors  of  the  gods.  They  elected  him  king  of  the  rebel 
government  Apparently  aware  of  the  methods  of  Eunus 
and  of  Salvius;  and  judging  in  his  own  way  the  errors  of 
their  plans,  Athenion  blocked  out  a  plan  of  his  own, 
unique  and  farsighted.  He  refused  to  except  all  the  slaves 
who  came  flocking  into  his  army,  mad  with  the  delirium 
of  revenge,  desperate  in  risks,  and  eager  for  war  to  the 
knife.  He  examined  them  and  accepted  only  those  whom 
he  judged  most  powerful,  obedient  and  fearless.  All  the 
rest  he  sent  back  to  their  old  employment  with  orders  to 
cultivate  the  land  and  multiply  the  stock  and  other  land 
products,82  lest  there  come  a  famine  which  would  be  more 
destructive  to  the  army  than  an  enemy  from  Rome.  He 
set  himself  up  as  a  star-gazer  and  proclaimed  to  his  men 
that  he  read  in  the  stars  how  he  wras  to  be  the  king  over 
all  the  Sicilians.  Ur  der  these  auspices  the  army  had  swol¬ 
len  to  10,000  men.  We  are  distinctly  informed  that  he 
was  vain  enough  to  strut  about  considerably,  with  fine 
purple  and  sporting  a  silver  cane;33  but  the  kind-hearted 
reader,  in  view  of  the  shrewd  policy  of  this  conduct,  may 
see  fit  to  forgive  a  poor  branded  slave,  whose  only  clothes 
probably  had  hitherto  been  his  naked  skin.34 

The  first  campaign  of  Athenion  was  against  the  forti- 


83  Many  of  these  farms  however  were  now  entirely  in  their  own  hands,  the 
owners  having  been  killed. 

43  Flor  ,  Epitom.  III.  19.  “Ipse  vesta  pupurea.  argenteoque  baculo  ” 

34  Dlod.  XXXIV.  frag.  ii.  88,  tells  the  story  of  the  slaves  of  Sicily  branded 
to  the  bone,  whipped  because  they  dared  ask  for  a  few  rags  to  protect  them  from 
winter. 


no 


A  THENTON. 


fied  city  of  Lilybseum  which  he  attacked  with  his  10,000 
men.  The  siege  continued  for  some  time  without  suc¬ 
cess;  and  he  concluded,  with  much  wisdom,  Dr.  Siefert 
says,35  to  raise  the  siege,  »ayiug  that  the  gods  were  so  un¬ 
favorable  to  the  taking  of  Lilybaeum  that  a  disaster  was 
about  as  certain  as  a  victory.  The  wisdom  of  thus  desist¬ 
ing  from  this  attempt  to  carry  the  city  by  siege,  Dr.  Siefert 
does  not  state.  Still  it  is  self-evident,  resting  upon  Athe- 
nion’s  probable  information  of  the  arrival  from  Mauritania 
of  a  large  detachment  of  men  which  king  Bocchus,  a  de¬ 
pendent  of  Rome,  had  dispatched  to  the  rescue  of  Lily- 
baeum.  Even  as  it  was,  the  shrewd  slave-king  with  all  his 
efforts  to  vacate  did  not  succeed  without  his  being  attacked 
on  the  night  of  their  landing,  by  the  Moors  and  suffering 
considerably.  Athenion  who  seems  to  have  depended 
upon  his  gifts  of  imbibing  counsel  from  supernatural 
sources,36  did  not  expect  so  much  from  the  foriified  cities 
as  did  Emms  and  Cleon,  whose  terrible  starvation  when 
hemmed  in  and  besieged  by  the  Romans  at  Morgantion 
and  Enna,  was  still  fresh  in  the  memory  of  many.  Here 
he  seems  to  have  been  wise.  He  afterwards  found  that 
those  fortresses  if  left  to  themselves,  conquered  them¬ 
selves,  as  it  were,  by  strifes  and  turmoils  of  the  citizens 
with  their  slaves  who  were  plotting  to  get  away  and  join 
the  insurge  uts  under  arms.  In  consequence,  the  rebels 
had  no  fear  of  the  cities  joining  the  Roman  forces;  since 
they  had  all  they  could  attend  to,  keeping  mischief  in  quell 
at  home.  The  whole  country,  however,  was  soon  in  pos¬ 
session  of  the  strikers. 

A  new  source  of  the  insurgents’  strength  now  devel- 


35  Sie'ert,  Sicilische  Sklavenkriege,  S.  27-28;  “  Der  Sterndeuterei  kundig, 
uatle  ei  in  den  Sternen  ge  esen  dass  er  Konig  liber  ganz  Sicilien  scm  vverde; 
deshalb  suchte  er  den  geoi  dueten  Zustand  aut  der  ln$el,  die  er  schon  als  etein 
Kigenthum  ansah,  aufrecht  zn  crhalten  Ein  Angriff  auf  das  feste  Lilybaeon, 
den  er  init.  zehntausend  Mann  unternalim  gelang  zwar  nicht,  diente  aber  docti 
da/.u,  den  Oluuben  an  seine  Sehergabe  zn  bestarken.  Als  erniimlich  mitgroszer 
Klngheii  die  Belagerung  aufzuhemen  beschloss,  unter  dem  Vorgeb  n,  den  e . oi.- 
tern  ge  aile  diese  Unternehmung  nicht  and  man  konnfe  eine  Niederlage  nnr 
durch  raschen  Abzng  vermeiden,  trat  schon  das  Verkundete  ein.  e.in  Korpe 
maurischer  Hiilfstruppen,  welches  der  neue  Bundesgenosse  der  Romer,  Konig 
Bocchus  von  Mauretanien  unter  Anfiilirnng  dcs  o  onion  den  bedriingten  Lily 
betanern  zngesendet  hai  te,  machte  sofoi  t  nach  seiner  Landung  einen  nachtlichdi 
AngriiT  mid  tugte  den  schon  irn  Abmarsch  begrilTenen  Truppen  dos  Athenion 
nicht  uubedeutenden  Sstaden  zu.” 

30  Cl.  Bucher.  Aufstande  der  (Jnfreinen  Arbeiter,  S.  78.  “"Man  darf  sich  dis 
3chwierigkeiten,  welche  den  FUhrer  einer  Sklavenbewegung  erwarteten,  ja  nlchl 
ils  gering  vorstellen.’' 


CHEAP  LABOR,  TRAMPS ,  VIOLENCE 


261 


oped  itself.  The  poor  free  people,  whose  condition  was 
oftentimes  worse  than  that  of  the  slaves  themselves,  came 
in  great  numbers  and  joined  the  phalanx  of  the  slaves.31 
They  were  ground  to  powder  between  the  masters  and 
the  slaves.  Not  unfrequently  their  miserable  condition 
was  such  that  they  resorted  to  violence  of  themselves;  and 
many  being  organized  in  unions  as  we  have  shown,  they 
were  a  source  of  turmoil.38  Thus  these  combined  sources 
of  power  made  up  a  large  army  which  Dr.  Siefert,  shrewdly 
catching  a  most  important  statement  of  Florus  and  care¬ 
fully  paraphrasing  the  torn  fragments  of  Diodorus  and  Dion 
Cassius,  sets  aside  the  contradictory  statement  of  Cicero, 
thus  resuscitating  and  making  tangible  what  must  clearly 
have  been  two  terrible  battles  involving  the  acknowledged 
overthrow  of  two  Roman  praetors,  one  after  the  other.39 

Dlod.  XXXVI  frag.  vi.  D:nd.  There  is  materital  extant  sufficient  for  an 
Interesting  and  instructive  essay  on  the  ancient  tramps  of  Sicily  and  other  coun¬ 
tries.  So  interesting  is  this  account  of  the  ancient  tramps  that  we  present  Din- 
dorf’s  paraphrase  of  Diodorus  in  full  on  the  tramp  question :  “  lngeus  vero  turn 
rerum  confusio,  et  malorum  quod  dicitur.  Ilias  s-iciliam  universam  occuparat. 
Non  enim  servi  tantum,  sed  etiam  ex  liberis  egestate  altlicti  omne  rapinarum  et 
flagitiorum  genus  committebant,  et  quicunque  offerrentur,  servi  aut  ingenui,  ne 
quis  perditam  illorum  malitiam  enuntiaret  omnes  impndenter  trnciddbant.  Ideo 
quotquot  in  ur bibus  se  continebant,  vix  ilia  qum  intra  pomeria  essent,,  pro  suis 
habebant:  quae  vero  extra  aliena  exiegique  violentice  mancipata  judicabant. 
Multa  insuper  alia  a  multis  contra  normam  aequitatis  et  humanitatis  per  Siciliam 
audacter  peragebantur.”  But  this  historian  does  not  stop  here.  The  tramps  who 
were  freeamen  who.  on  account  of  the  newly  imported  cheap  labor  of  the  slaves, 
were  suffering  from  want  of  means,  unable  longer  to  find  employment,  had  grown 
desperate  to  the  mst  degree,  and  tearfully  dangerous.  Fragment  xi.  continues  the 
description  of  those  terrible  days  and  desperate  men  as  follows :  “Non  enim 
servi  dumtaxat  rebelles  Siciliam  vastabant,  sed  etiam  ingenni,  quotquot  nec  prco- 
dia  uec  agros  possidebant,  ad  latrocinia  et  rapinas  conversi,  catervatim  per  re- 
gionem  discursabant,  et,  paupertate  simul  et  mala  mente  impnlsi,  armenta  et 
pe  ora  abigebant,  fruges  in  villis  conditas  diripiebant,  et  obvium  quemque  nullo 
discrimine,  Bervum  an  iugenum,  obtruncabant  ne  quis  eseet  qui  eorum  furor;  m 
ac  facinora  indicaret.  Quumque  in  Sicilia  justitum  esset  eo  quod  nullus  priotor 
populi  Komani  jus  dicebat.  cuncti  liberrimam  licentiam  nacti  impune  debaccha- 
oantur:  proinde  nullus  non  locus  infamis  erat  rapinis  ac  latrociniis  ac  vi  perdito- 
rumhominuin  In  ditissimicujusquefortunas  secure  invadentlum.  Atii,  qui  p-iullp 
ante  fama  atque  opibus  clarissimi  inter  cives  suos  fueraut.  tunc  fortuna  sui  ito 
coramutata  non  modo  a  fugitivis  per  summam  contumeliam  compilabaut  ur,  -cd 
pjmtera  injurias  et  insolentiam  hominum  ingenuorum  perferre  cog  bantur. 
Quocirca  universi  vix  ilia,  quae  intra  pomcerium  erant,  pro  suis  habebant:  quee- 
cunque  vero  extra  urbium  rnuros  erant  posita,  ea  aliena  et  praadonum  violentiae 
ob  ioxia  exist  imabant  Denique  per  singulas  urbes  atque  oppida  ingens  conf'u- 
sio  ac  perturbatio  juris  judiciorumque  erat.  Nam  perauelles,  quum  agrum  om- 
uam  agminibus  sufs  occuparent  infensi  dominis  suis  atquainexplebili  cupiditate 
flagrantes,  itinera  omnia  intercludebant.  Qui  vero  in  urbibussupereranladhuc 
servi,  ®gri  ac  defectionem  aniinis  spirantes,  terrori  dominis  erant.” 

88  Siefert,  idem,  S.  28 :  “  Diese  besitzlosen  Freien  iibten  oft  nach  are  ere  Ge- 
waltthaten  aus  a!s  die  Sklaven.  Es  hersohte  eine  masslose  Verwirmng  and 
Gesetzlosigkeit  eine  Ka<ur  lAias,  wie  Diodor  sagt.”  See  Diod.  XXXVI.  frag 
*1.  init. :  also  our  note  37  above. 

»h  Cicero,  Verres,  II.  54,  gives  it  as  follows  :  “  Athenionem  qui  nullum  oppl* 
dumcepit.”  Of  course:  for  he  had  determined  wisely  from  tne  start,  not  to 
molest  the  towns  Siefert  however,  idem,  S.  36.  remarks  in  note  76;  ••  Bei 


262 


ATHENION. 


The  truth  as  to  the  lost  histories  of  this  bloody  war  is 

made  up  by  a  short  but  clear  statement  in  Floras*  Epitome 
of  Roman  history,  and  for  perfect  fairness  we  propose  to 
use  the  old  recensio  and  notes  of  Fischer  and  Duker. 
Floras,  being  an  aristocrat  of  an  exalted  gens  family,  either 
of  the  proud  Julian  or  of  the  Anneean  stock,  enjoying  the 
family  prestige  of  the  Caesars,  whose  instincts,  true  to  the 
genius  of  the  Pagan  world  could  muster  no  sympathy  and 
hardly  a  contemptuous  pity  for  so  mean  and  degraded  a 
creature  as  a  slave,  would  surely  not  have  confessed,  in 
writing  his  epigrammatical  story  of  Athenion,  to  more 
than  the  truth.  His  sense  of  humiliation  as  he  confesses 
the  terrible  flagellations  which  his  country  received  dur¬ 
ing  the  servile  wars,  comes  repeatedly  to  the  surface  in 
his  pages,  betraying  the  feelings  of  moral  nausea;  and  he 
confesses  no  more  humiliations  of  his  family  and  race  than 
truth  compels.  Yet  Floras  distinctly  tells  us  that  Athe¬ 
nion  utterly  destroyed  two  Roman  praetors,  or  at  least 
their  armies  and  camps.40  This  is  perfectly  consistent 
with  the  general  contour  of  the  story.  A  Roman  leader 
possibly  Lucullus,  who  afterwards  fought  Salvius,  with  a 
probable  force  of  Moors  under  some  commander  sent  out 
by  King  Bocchus,  had  arrived  in  time  to  save  Lilybseum 
from  the  assault  of  Athenion.  When  their  fleet  unex¬ 
pectedly  appeared,  Athenion  retired  at  night  but  was  at¬ 
tacked  and  somewhat  damaged  before  making  good  his 
escape.  The  rebel  commander  now  prepared  himself  for 
a  general  engagement  with  the  allied  armies  of  Lucullus 
and  Bocchus. 

It  is,  therefore,  not  until  after  the  battle  of  Triocala  that 
we  can  apply  the  statement  of  Floras  regarding  Athenion: 

Cicero  1st  der  Zweck  der  Erwahnung  wohl  ins  Ange  zu  fassen.”  See  Supra. 

40  Florue,  Epit.  Rerum  Romanarnm,  lib  III.  cap.  19,  §.  11.  “  Athenio  pastor 
. ssevlebat.  Ab  hoc,  quoque  Praetorii  exercitus  easel,  capta  Servilii  cas¬ 
tra,  capta  Lucuiii  ”  (castra).  In  note  h.  Fischer  explains  as  follows:  ‘  Servilii 
Castra,  Capta  Lucuiii.  Alios  Annales  habuit  Florae;  nam  ex  uostris,  C.  Servilii 
et  O.  Licinii  Lucuiii  castra  non  modo  uon  capta  luisse,  contra  vero.  et  a  Luculle 
victore  semel,  et  a  Kerviiio  tantum  non  represses  f uisse  servos  manifestum  est.’’ 
This  is  as  we  surmised  Floras  had  at  his  command  at  the  time  he  wrote,  works 
of  history  which  at  present  do  not  exist  at  all  as  here  suggested  by  Fischer.  By 
the  defeats  of  Athenion  are  only  meant  those  occurring  at  Triocala  anti  the  pre¬ 
vious  repulse  though  not  a  deteat  which  he  had  suffered  on  his  withdrawal  from 
Liiybseurn.  We  now  turn  to  the  Duker  comments  §.  11.  p.  919  Delphine  clas¬ 
sics.  and  this ;  “Ab  hoc  quoque  Diodorus,  lib.  XXXVI.  trlbuit  hsec  Salvio  cui- 
dam.  cui  Atbenio,  velut  imperator  rigi,  audieu'.  fuerlt. ”  True,  Diodorus  says 
Salvius  was  victorious  over  a  prator  but  it  was  on  the  extreme  east  coast  and 
the  praetor  was  neither  Servilius  nor  Lucullus  but  the  propraetor,  P.  Licini  is 
Vierva  Nothing  is  safer  titan  to  iotlow  feitfert,  q.  v.  delta  SO. 


SALVIUS  AND  ATHEN10N  MEET. 


263 


“  This  man  putting  on  raiment  of  purple,  sporting  a  silver 
oane,  his  forehead  coronated  in  the  manner  of  kings,  not 
less  fanatical  than  the  fellow  Eunus  before  him,  inflamed 
his  army  and  melted  together  their  sympathies  so  that 
they  were  even  far  more  bitter ;  and  then,  as  if  to  vindi¬ 
cate  this  predecessor’s  actions,  raved  over  towns,  castles, 
villages,  tearing  them  to  pieces,  inciting  the  slaves  against 
their  masters  and  causing  them  to  turn  traitors  and  join 
his  hordes.  Thus  he  met  and  captured  the  camps  of  Ser- 
vilius  and  likewise  those  of  Lucullus.”  These  are  the 

Elain  words  of  Florus,  who  though  whimsically  proud,  was 
onest.  Accepting  them  we  proceed ;  for  he  framed  this 
statement  from  historical  sources  now  not  extant. 

We  now  return  to  the  movements  of  Salvius,  the  slave- 
king  of  Sicily,  whom  we  left  after  the  battle  before  Mor- 
gantion,  in  possession  of  the  whole  country,  having  beaten 
the  propraetor,  Licinius  Nerva,  and  consummated  a  great 
Bacrificial  solemnity  to  the  honor  of  the  twins  of  Jupiter 
in  whose  asylum  they  had  from  the  first  been  protected. 
This  worthy  flute-player,  Messiah  and  prophet,  had  in  the 
meantime  not  been  idle.  The  army  of  picked  men  was 
now  augmented  to  a  force  of  30,000,  and  by  direction  of 
Salvius,  concentrated  into  one  solid  army-corps.  The 
union  of  these  men  was  effected  at  or  in  the  vicinity  of 
Leontini,  in  the  fruitful  valley  of  one  of  the  many  beau¬ 
tiful  rivers  which  fall  into  the  Mediterranean  from  the 
mountains.  Here  on  the  occasion  of  another  ovation  in 
thanks  and  honor  to  the  Palikoi  or  twins,  for  propitiating 
the  victories,  the  slave-king  assumed  the  robes  of  royalty 
and  the  more  resounding  name  of  Tryphon;"  ordering 
that  henceforth  he  should  be  known  by  that  name.  The 
next  thing  was  to  select  a  situation  whereat  to  establish 
himself.  With  this  intention  he  now  resumed  his  maroh 
back  to  the  spot  where  the  first  decisive  battle  had  been 
won. 

Salvius,  alias  Triphon,  appeared  at  the  stronghold  of 
Triocala  on  the  upper  waters  of  the  Alaba  river  where 
were  combined  sweet  waters,  fruit,  wine,  oil  and  all  the 
profusion  of  vegetable  and  animal  plentitude.  Here  was 
improvised  for  him  a  palace.  Athenion,  the  rival  slave- 

«  Btich.  Aufit  S.  78,  Bays  his  real  name  was  Diodotus  Tryphon  and  cius 
vVesBeling. 


264 


AT  HEN  ION 


king  was  summoned'  to  appear,  and  brought  with  him 
3,000  men,  leaving  7,000  or  more  in  the  field,  under  proper 
leaders.  Siefert  thinks  the  object  of  Tryphon  in  sending 
for  Athenion  was  to  put  him  in  chains  through  impulses 
of  jealousy.42  At  any  rate,  Athenion  was  arrested  and  for 
this  treachery  Tryphon  afterwards  paid  with  bitterness ; 
for  retribution  was  at  hand.  Nevertheless,  the  fortifica* 
tions  which  had  been  designed  went  on  to  completion. 
The  place  was  surrounded  by  a  wall  and  dykes  5,000  feet 
in  length  and  became  a  large  market  place.  Triphon  chose 
for  himself  a  council  and.  lictors  in  the  manner  of  the 
Romans.  These  strode  about  on  guard  with  their  bun¬ 
dles  of  whips  and  their  hatchets  in  hand,  attired  in  jewels 
and  purple.43  While  this  was  going  on  Athenion,  the  brav¬ 
est  and  wisest  of  the  two  slave-kings,  lay  in  chains,  waiting 
for  his  opportunity.  It  came. 

The  year  B.  C.  103  witnessed  in  Rome  the  fitting  out 
of  the  propraetor  L.  Licinius  Lucullus  who  with  an  army 
of  Romans  and  Italians  14,000  strong  arrived  in  Sicily. 
On  landing  the  force  was  augmented  by  800  Bithynians, 
Thessalians  and  Acarnanians,  600  Lucanians  led  by  the 
bold  Cleptius  and  600  others  of  different  extraction.  This 
formed  a  total  of  16,000  men.  But  it  must  by  no  means 
be  reasoned  from  this  statement  that  there  was  no  con¬ 
siderable  army  of  the  defeated  and  scattered  ranks  of 
Nerva  and  the  Moors,  to  be  collected  by  Lucullus  where¬ 
with  largely  to  augment  his  army  in  Sicily  itself.  Un¬ 
doubtedly  the  combined  army  of  Lucullus  when  in  readi¬ 
ness  for  the  great  battle  which  we  are  going  to  recount, 
numbered  25,000,  many  of  whom  were  experienced  veter¬ 
ans.  With  this  large  army,  many  of  whom  were  Romans, 
the  governor  boldly  marched  across  to  within  a  mile  and 
a  half  from  Triocala  which  he  intended  to  besiege  and  take 
by  storm.  Like  Rupillius  before,  he  was  provided  with 
thongs  and  gibbet-makers,  to  crucify  the  slaves  who  should 
fall  into  his  hands 

42  Siefert.  SictUsche  Sklavenkriege,  S.  29  “  Welcho  Grunde  ihn  hierzu  b«- 

wogeu  batten,  ist  nicht  klar :  sicher  jedoch,  dass  Triphon  in  ihm  einen  heim’ichen 
Nebenbuhler  sah  den  er  sobald  sich  cine  gunstige  Gelegenheit  bot,  verhaftco 
and  in  Gewahrsam  bringen  leiss.” 

43  Diod.  idem,  vii.  4;  ’E£eAe£a.TO  Se  tea l  ratv  4>povrjaet  Sia(f>ep6vT(ov  avSpa rowt 
i/cai'oa?.  oi)?  a.7roSet£as  avp[ 3ovAovs  exp^To  avveSpois  avrois ’  t rifievvav  re  nept,nop(f>vpov 
ir«pie/3aAAeTO  icai  nAaTvaiqpov  eSv  xiTau'a  k aru  tovs  \pT)paTi.apovs,  Kai  pafidovxovs 
ptTa  ntAeKeiov  rovs  npoi\yovpivov<;,  icai  raAAa  navra  baa  noiovai  t«  /cat  inu<oap.ov • 
a iv  (mTqbfve  PaaiAeiav. 


BATTLE  OF  SCIRTHJEA. 


265 


But  Tryphon  whom  we  left  in  a  fit  of  narrow  jealousy 
putting  Athenion,  the  best  of  the  rebel  generals,  in  chains 
and  behind  bars,  hearing  through  scouts  of  the  near  ap¬ 
proach  of  a  great  army  of  Romans  and  their  allies,  made 
haste  to  consult  this  rival  king  and  ascertain  his  views. 
Athenion  advised  him  not  to  risk  a  siege  but  to  confront 
the  Roman  in  the  open  field  and  offer  battle. 

Tryphon  who  well  knew  the  judgment  of  Athenion  as 
a  commander  and  the  great  influences  he  possessed  over 
his  troops,  of  whom  he  had  in  his  own  right  fully  10,000, 
acquiesced ;  and  the  combined  armies  of  the  two  kings, 
in  all  40,000  men,  marched  northward  to  a  place  called 
Scirthaea 44  and  there  pitched  in  line  of  battle.  Opposite 
at  a  distance  of  a  mile  and  a  half  lay  the  Roman  legions. 
The  offer  of  battle  seems  mutually  to  have  been  accepted; 
but  which  of  the  two  antagonists  gave  the  onset  cannot  be 
clearly  ascertained.  Here  stood  on  the  one  hand,  a 
great  army  of  40,000  desperate  slaves,  flushed  with  half  a 
dozen  victories,  burning  with  the  memory  of  their  previ¬ 
ous  sufferings  and  anxious  for  revenge.  Their  command¬ 
ers  had  a  sufficient  taste  of  the  luxuries  of  freedom  to 
make  them  desperate  and  they  were  not  wanting  in  the 
certain  knowledge  of  the  terrible  fate  which  awaited  de¬ 
feat.  To  them  and  their  braves  alike,  this  murderous  con¬ 
flict  meant  liberty  and  continued  luxury,  or  else  death  in 
the  battle-field  or  upon  the  ignominious  cross.  On  the 
side  of  the  Romans,  every  man  knew  that  defeat  by  a  base 
legion  of  runaway  slaves  was  of  itself  a  scandal  which  re¬ 
flected  alike  upon  the  general  and  the  soldier.  The  proud 
senate  made  it  dangerous  for  him  who  could  not  return 
to  the  capital  with  the  blood  and,  as  it  were,  the  scalp  of 
the  last  slave  who  had  dared  to  defy  its  arrogant  and 
overbearing  prowess.  Besides  this,  there  yet  remain 
untold  the  incentives  for  the  praetors  to  enrich  themselves 
by  plunder — a  boon  which  defeat  would  deprive  them  of. 

With  these  contrasting  urgents,  involving  hopes  and 
plans  which  were  to  furnish  the  foundations  of  history  of 
progress  or  retrogression  for  the  human  race,  the  two 
great  armies  fell  into  mortal  grapple.  After  a  certain 
amount  of  sparring  and  skirmish  between  the  outskirts, 

**  Dirai.  XXX  Vi.  frag.  vili.  2,  3,  4  and  5.  lJaragraphs  3  and  4  contain  the 
lodcription  of  ;he  battle  as  we  give  it.  q.  v. 


266 


ATHENION. 


the  main  body  of  each  army  closed  in  with  an  unwavering 
clash  of  arms  under  which  the  combatants  fell  in  thous¬ 
ands.46  Amid  the  battle,  while  the  terrible  plunges  of 
maddened  men  with  thrusts  and  din  were  at  their  height 
of  fury,  Athenion,  mounted  on  a  prancing  steed,  rushed, 
at  the  head  of  a  detachment  of  his  cavalry  200  strong,  with 
a  certain  frenzy  which  sometimes  characterizes  life  ener¬ 
gies  when  wrought  to  a  tension  of  reckless  excitement.  He 
lunged  into  the  enemy’s  center,  striking  down  everything 
before  him.  No  doubt  this  was  a  rash  action,  however 
magnificent  it  may  seem  to  the  critic  of  military  exploits  ; 
for  although  he  made  his  hated  foe  tremble  with  the  shock, 
he  received  three  blows  so  stunning,  though  not  fatal,  that 
his  fellow  slaves  on  seeing  him  fall,  feeling  that  in  him  as 
in  a  god,  resides  alone  the  genius  of  victory,  fell  into  a  panic. 
When  the  soldiers  of  Athenion  shrank  back  the  cry  of  vic¬ 
tory  must  have  been  raised  by  the  Romans  ;  for  Diodorus 
tells  us  that  half  the  slaves,  in  number  20,000,  were  either 
killed  or  taken  prisoners,  but  that  the  remaining  20,000  fled 
back  to  their  defences  at  Triokala  under  command  of  Try- 
phou  who  survived.  Siefert’s  suggestion  that  the  rebels 
lost  courage  scarcely  appears  well  founded.4®  We  not  only 
find  the  slaves  again  in  possessing  of  their  fortress  of  Trio- 
cala  with  Try  phon,  but  we  are  told  that  the  rebels  kept  it; 
and  we  are  without  assurances  that  they  were  either  cap¬ 
tured  or  driven  away.  Nor  was  the  gallant  Athenion  lost 
to  them ;  for  after  the  catastrophe  which  may  have  closed 
with  the  sunset,  on  this  great  and  bloody  battle,  this  hero, 
taking  shelter  from  harm  under  cover  of  night,  arose  and 
so  far  returned  to  reason  and  strength  that  he  crawled  safely 
back  to  the  fortress  of  Triocala  with  the  rest.  Thus,  con¬ 
sidering  the  severe  punishment  suffered  by  the  Romans, 
the  fact  that  they  did  not  pursue,  that  it  was  nine  days  be¬ 
fore  they  arrived  before  the  fortifications  of  Tryphon  and 
Athenion,  and  ventured,  battered  and  shattered  up  to  the 

«  Nacn  einlgem  Geplankel  kam  es  zum  geordneten  AngrifE,  dessen  Erfolg 
range  herhber  und  hinuber  echwankte.”  Diodorus,  XXXVI,  frag,  8  3,  says  t 
“To  /. i.ev  ovv  npu) rov  eyivouro  (rvi'e^els  cucpofiokicrpLoi.  etc.”  This  skirmishing  with 
lighi  armed  troops  introduced  the  general  battle. 

•'  Siefert,  Italitch.  Sklavenkriege,  S.  29 :  “  Da  untemahm  Athenion  mit  zwei- 
hundert  auserwahlten  Kcitern  etnen  Angriil,  durchden  er  Alles  vor  sich  nieder- 
warf.  Ungltlcklielicrwclse  ahcr  wnrde  cr  mitten  in  dieaem  Erfolge  durch  drei 
Wunden  kampfunfahjg  gemncht  v  ornuf  die  Sklavcn, ninth loe  gemacht,  flohen,” 
Diod  XXX Vi.  frag.  viii.  4,  who  i  ioims  us  that  Athenion  when  struck  down 
'eigned  death  until  night,  when  he  capul. 


BATTLE  OF  TRI OCALA. 


267 


gates  of  the  rebel  fortress,  in  fine,  that  they  failed  altogether 
of  taking  the  place  and  experienced  thereafter  nothing  but 
defeat,  is  strong  circumstantial  evidence  that  Scirthsea  was 
a  drawn  battle  on  both  sides. 

Nine  days  after  the  Battle  of  Scirthaea  the  army  of  Lu- 
cullus  appeared  in  front  of  the  town  of  Triocala.  How 
many  men  his  army  now  mustered  or  how  many  of  the 
former  officers  like  Cleptius  still  adorned  his  ranks,  is  not 
definitely  given.  But  they  had  within  the  nine  days  so  far 
recovered  from  the  severe  punishment  they  had  received, 
as  to  be  at  least  endowed  with  the  boldness  to  altogether 
underrate  the  strength  and  spirit  of  their  adversary.47 

Meanwhile  Atbenion  was  rapidly  recovering  from  his  in¬ 
juries  received  at  the  battle  of  Scirthsea  and  was,  as  we  are 
led  to  understand  by  the  evidence  left  us,  so  far  restored 
that  he  appeared  with  all  his  former  valor  and  vigor.  Dr. 
Siefert  who  talks  about  the  lost  courage  of  the  working 
men,48  naturally  enough  catching  the  idea  fromFlorus,  says 
that  they  now  mustered  courage  to  attack  the  Romans.49 
Our  opinion  is,  reasoning  from  appearances  which  confirm 
the  valiant  fighting  force,  such  as  must  appear  to  every 
candid,  unbiased  reasoner,  shows  the  rebels  to  have  crippled 
the  Romans  at  the  great  battle  of  Scirthaea  9  days  before; 
and  that  they  did  not  lose  courage,  but  doggedly  held  their 
own  throughout.  Certain  it  is  that  another  obstinate  battle 
was  fought  before  the  fortifications  of  Triocala.  The  Rom- 
ans  made  the  first  attack  but  were  received  apparently 
in  open  field  by  the  rebels.  A  conflict  followed  in  which 
the  entire  strength  of  both  armies  was  brought  to  bear. 
The  loss  on  both  sides  was  very  serious.  But  in  this  second 
scene  of  blood  the  victory  was  with  the  workingmen.  Lu- 
cullus  was  completely  driven  from  the  field,  his  camps  taken 
by  storm  “  and  his  army  so  scattered  from  place  to  place 
that  he  seems  never  to  have  recovered,  but  fell  to  plunder¬ 
ing  like  the  slaves  and  freed  men  themselves,  appropriating 

47  Dlod.  frag,  vlii.  5. 

48  We  can  no  longer  say  slaves.  A  large  proportion  of  the  rebel  army  was 
cow  composed  of  freed  men,  mechar'.cs,  laborers,  etc. 

iiefert,  Sicilische  SM  ive^kriege,  S.  29.  “Als  Lucullus  endlich  9  Tage 
aach  der  Schlacht  zur  Belageruag  der  Veste  schritt,  war  der  ershiitterte  Mulh 
schon  wieder  be.estigt.” 

so  Florus,  lib.  III.  cap.  XIX.  “  Lucullo  capta  castia— vicos,  oppida,  castella 
diripiens,”  referring  to  Athenion.  Siefert,  S.  29,  speaking  of  lucullus,  says; 
“  ja  szin  I  ager  soli  sognr  von  den  Sklaven  ersturmt  worden  sein  "  See  note  76 
Trbore  ■ -efert  defers  to  Clc.  Verr.  II.  £-i;  "Atlwaionem  nullum  op.duta 
'*PfV#  ko :  “Pal  Cic>-“:o  is  d»r  Zweck  'PS  Auge  zu  fassen.’’ 


208 


A  TEEN  I  ON, 


the  funds  entrusted  to  him,  to  his  own  nee  and  with  defeat* 
avarice  and  demoralization  was  rendered  hors  de  combat  al¬ 
together. 

What  had  in  the  mean  time  been  going  ou  between  the 
two  rival  slave-kings,  Tryphon  and  Athenion,  no  one  can 
tell.  We  only  know  that  the  former,  after  the  battle  of  Tri- 
ocala  had  died 61  and  that  Athenion  had  been  elected  king 
over  all  the  rebels,  including  slaves  and  freedmen.  Per¬ 
haps  a  dark  deed  of  revenge  or  of  jealousy  may  have  been 
committed ;  more  humanely  let  us  foster  the  conjecture  that 
Tryphon  had  lost  his  life  in  some  valorous  charge  which 
secured  the  victory  to  the  slaves,  in  the  desperate  battle  we 
have  just  recounted. 

The  year  B.  C,  102  had  thus  rolled  by  and  not  only  was 
another  large  prgetorean  army  of  the  Romans  annihilated 
but  the  rebels  with  Athenion,  their  veteran  general  at  their 
head,  were  complete  masters  of  Sicily. 

Rome  under  this  extraordinary  condition  of  things,  sent 
0.  Servilius,  B.  C.  102,  with  another  praetorian  army  under 
orders  from  the  senate  to  leave  no  menus  untried  whereby 
to  stamp  out  the  rebellion.  This  Roman  commander  and 
praetor  mu>t  have  landed  his  army  at  Massana  on  the  so- 
called  Etruscum  j return ,  now  the  Straits  of  Messina;  and 
judging  from  appearances  the  first  battle  may  not  have  oc¬ 
curred  at  a  long  distance  from  there.  It  is  not  certain  but  that 
the  Romans  marched  in  a  southwesterly  direction  for  many 
miles  into  the  interior  before  the  two' armies  met.  We 
only  know  that  the  combatants  sought  and  found  each 
other  and  that  there  was  another  encounter;  of  course,  one 
of  those  fierce  and  internecine  struggles  in  which  great 
numbers  of  brave  men  are  occasionally  mowed  down,  but 
whose  numbers,  memory  and  place  are,  for  shame,  pitched 
into  the  dark  grottoes  of  oblivion.  Fiorus  shuffles  the  fact 
over  to  posterity  with  language  provokingly  crisp  and  in  - 
dh  alive  of  mortification  and  distaste;62  Cicero  denies;53 
Dion  Cassius 54  is  in  tatters  at  the  Vatican;  Diodorus  lies 

61  l)iod.  XXXVI.  1.  “  T«Aeur>jaai'TOS  Se  Tpv<f>iovot,  8(.dSox<>{  rrjs  5 

viutv  KadiarTa.Ta.1.,  Kai  tovto  pev  rroAeis  «7roAt6p/cet,”  etc. 

52  Flor.  Epitom.  Populi  Romani .  III.  19.  “  Aihenio— vicoe,  oppida,  castcHa 
diripiens  ” 

53  Cic.  Verrcs,  II.  54,  “Athenion  qui  uuiluin  oppiduui  cepit.”  This  how¬ 
ever,  we  think  innocently  refers  to  ti  e  fact  that  Athenion’s  policy  was  from  th6 
first,  not  to  take  the  fortified  towns:  since  Funus  and  Cleon  in  taking  this  coursi 
had  lost  their  cause. 


BATTLE  OF  FLORUS. 


269 


contorted  into  the  tell-tale  mutterings  of  his  fragments; 84 
Livy  leaves  only  the  paltry  exordium  of  his  epitomies." 
But  enough  of  these  is  still  extant,  together  with  the  cir¬ 
cumstantial  evidence  such  as  the  disgrace  by  the  Roman 
Senate,  of  the  defeated  praetors  and  their  exile  for  life,  and 
continued  ravages  of  the  war  for  years;  all  these  verified 
facts  prove  the  words  of  Florus,  to  the  effect  that  Servilius 
and  Athenion  met  in  some  undescribed  and  mortal  fray ; 
that  the  proud  slave-king  won  a  complete  victory;  and  that 
labor  from  its  points  of  irascibility  and  vengeance  was  once 
more  vindicated.  Such  is  not  only  our  own  rendering  of 
the  real  meaning  of  the  vague  words  left  us  but  they  are 
as  conscientiously  read  by  others.66 

After  this  important  and  probably  great  battle  which 
was  the  fifth  in  number  since  the  outbreak  of  the  war  and 
which  from  our  authority  we  may  call  the  battle  of  Florus, 
the  Roman  general,  either  disheartened  or  prone  to  enrich 
himself  like  his  predecessors,  with  plunder  and  malfeasance, 
or  still  more  probably,  being  utterly  annihilated,  left  the 
strikers  with  Athenion  at  their  head,  complete  masters  of 
the  field.  They  ravaged  and  laid  waste  the  country  on 
every  side,  destroying  castles,  towns  and  cities.  Athenion 
next  turned  his  wrath  toward  Messana.  Reaching  it  by 
forced  marches,  he  stealthily  at  night  surprised  the  inhabit¬ 
ants  of  that  city  as  they  were  engaged  in  its  outskirts  cele¬ 
brating  the  sacrifices  to  their  gods,  and  cut  them  to  pieces, 
taking  quantities  of  plunder  which  he  made  off  with.  But 
he  steered  shy  of  the  city  itself,  keeping  apparently  in  mind 
the  danger  of  being  hemmed  in,  and  the  dreadful  results 
which,  in  the  previous  rebellion  under  Eunus,  had  caused 
the  great  catastrophe. 

Athenion  after  marching  through  the  northeastern  portions 
of  Sicily67  gathering  wealth  by  plunder,  struck  a  westerly 
tack  and  the  next  we  hear  from  him,  is  at  the  ancient  walled 

*4  Dion  Cassius,  excerpt,  101.  Peiresc;  Diod.  XXXVI.  ix.  1  and  2. 

65  Livy,  Eirttomc,  LXIX.  fin.  “M.  Aquillius  proconsul  excitatnm  confecit.” 

68  Sieiert,  Italische  Sklavenkrlege,  S.  30.  “  Athenion,  der  nach  dem  inzwischen 
erfolgten  Tode  dee  Tryphon,  Konig  der  Sklaven  geworden  war,  tratihm  (Servilius) 
mit  grosser  Kiihnheit  entgegen  und  schlug  ihn  aus  dem  Felde;  nachdem  auch 
das  Lager  des  Servilius  einmal  genommen  war,  wagte  dieser  sich  nicht  mehr  zum 
Kainpfe  hervor,  und  Athenion  konnle  ungelundert  das  land  durchstreifen,  kast- 
elle  und  kleinere  Stadte  einnehmen.” 

67  Much  obscurity  enshrouds  both  the  history  and  topography  of  this  place 
Livy,  lib.  XXVI.  21,  speaks  oi  the  place  as  being  obscure.  “Secutfe  defectionem 
earum  Hybla  e*  Maced#  sunt  ignublioresque  qnaedam  alia).”  This  mention 
lers  to  B  0  .  . 


270 


ATHENION. 


town  of  Macella  supplied  with  a  castle  or  citadel.  It  is 
situated  southeastward  of  Segesta  and  not  more  than  40 
miles  to  the  eastward  of  LiJybaeum.  Here  he  established 
and  fortified  himself,  B.  0.  101,  the  third  year  of  the  war; 
supplying  his  army  with  the  products  of  the  fruitful  country 
around  him.68 

During  this  time  C.  Marius  and  M.  Aquillius  had  been 
elected  consuls  at  Rome,  and  it  was  resolved  to  send  a  full 
consular  army  to  Sicily  and  thus  put  an  end  to  the  war  at 
once.  Accordingly  Aquillius,  during  the  year  101,  arrived 
in  the  island  with  a  consular  army  consisting  of  a  large  force 
of  veteran  Romans  and  other  soldiers.  The  terrible  hand¬ 
ling  which  the  people  of  Sicily  who  had  remained  hostile 
to  Athenion,  had  received,  made  them  eager  to  grasp  this 
new  offer  of  succor ;  and  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  large 
numbers  of  the  defeated  fragments  of  the  armies  of  Lucullus 
and  Servilius  were  mustered  in,  swelling  the  consular  army 
to  a  host.  Aquillius  proved,  for  the  first  time,  a  match  for 
the  redoubtable  strikers. 

Whether  the  Romans  landed  at  Messana  or  at  the  port  of 
iEgesta  in  the  vicinity  of  Macella  where  the  army  of  Athe¬ 
nion  lay,  is  not  easy  to  determine.  The  distance  from  the 
Ostia  or  port  of  Rome  by  water,  direct  to  iEgesta,  or  to 
Messana  is  by  fifty  miles  in  favor  of  a  landing  at  iEgesta} 
and  to  have  gone  by  way  of  Messana  would  have  cost  the 
consul  a  march  of  150  miles  from  there  to  Macella,  on  the 
head  waters  of  the  Scamander,  over  a  country  already  laid 
waste  by  the  army  of  his  foe.  We  cannot  but  assume  that 
these  two  desperate  generals  met  at,  or  near  Macella ;  for 
Diodorus  tells  us  that  Athenion,  true  to  his  old  resolution 
never  to  let  the  Romans  hem  him  into  a  walled  town, 
marched  out  in  full  force  to  meet  him.69 

A  great  battle  was  fought.  When  the  two  chiefs  espied 
each  other,  they  rushed  together  in  mortal  duel.60  Athenion, 

68  Ptolemy  the  ancient  geographer  mentions  it  as  being  in  the  interior  of  the 
island.  See  Universal  Geography,  III.  4,  14.  Whereas  Polybius,  I.  24:  Kara  r«  rijr 
e<  rijs  AiyecrTTjj  dvaxwp’Jtriv  ManeWav  irdA.iv  Kara  Kpdros  ei'Aov.  This  puts  the 
place  far  to  the  west  near  Athenion’s  possible  birthplace;  Dion  Cassius,  Exc.  104; 
Xajpiov  Se  ti  MdxeAAav  evepicei  reixicra/aevos,  etc.  Siefert  imagines  this  to  refer 
to  the  town  in  the  neighborhood  of  Messana.  Polybius  is  however  right;  in  proof 
of  which  we  refer  the  critic  to  Arrowsmitli’s  Or  bis  Terr  arum,  Vetcrum  Descriptio. 
Lond.  1822. 

59  "Athenion  stellte  sich  dem  Aquillius  in  offener  Feldschlacht  entgegen.” 
Siefert,  S.  30.  Floras,  III.  19,  but  he  may  have  referred  to  the  successful  siege* 
by  Aquillius,  of  the  fugitives  after  their  defeat. 

so  Dion  Cassius.  Iraq.  104. 


BATTLE  OF  M A  CELL  A. 


27 1 

almost  exactly  like  Spartacus  at  his  last  and  great  battle  of 
Silaius,  struck  out  for  his  illustrious  antagonist,  determined 
with  his  own  hand,  to  wreak  vengeance  and  thus  cross  out 
accounts  with  Rome’s  highest  and  proudest  source  of  power. 
The  men  were  equally  brave  and  gifted  in  the  sabre’s  use. 
How  longr  the  duel  lasted  is  not  told ;  but  we  are  distinctly 
informed  that  this  time  it  was  the  slave-king’s  turn  to  re¬ 
ceive  the  mortal  thrust.81  Aquillius  was  a  tiger  in  combat 
and  though  he  received  heavy  blows  on  the  head  and  in  his 
breast  he  was  the  fortunate  of  the  two  combatants.62  Athe- 
nion,  pierced  and  dying,  fell  bleeding  at  the  consul’s  feet. 

Again,  as  at  the  battle  of  Scirt.hsea,  the  warriors  of  Athe- 
nion  lost  courage  at  the  fall  of  their  beloved  leader,  who 
this  time  was  finished  and  never  rose  to  their  rescue  as  be¬ 
fore.  All  but  a  fragment  of  20,000  workingmen  were  killed 
or  taken  prisoners.  These  fled  to  the  mountains  close  at 
hand,  but  were  followed  by  Aquillius  with  so  much  energy 
that  in  two  years  time  they  were  nearly  exterminated. 

Manius  Aquillius  afterwards  wrote  at  Capua  an  inscrip¬ 
tion  which  is  still  extant  and  quoted  in  the  archaeological 
collection  of  Orelli,  to  the  effect  that  when  he  was  praetor 
in  Sicily  he  had  busied  himself  hunting  down  runaway 
slaves  and  had  returned  to  their  masters  as  many  as  917  of 
them.8*  This  very  interesting  inscription  sheds  a  flame  of 
corroboratory  light  upon  that  immense  uprising  and  sub¬ 
stantiates  the  history  of  the  affair,  as  we  have  extracted  it 
from  the  fragments.  It  also  adds  to  history  the  statement 
that  the  Sicilian  slaves  had  reinforcements  from  Italy.84 

The  awful  scenes  of  crucifixion 88  as  in  the  case  of  the  re- 

61  Diod.,  XXXVT.  x.  1.  which  corresponds  with  Siefert.  S.  30,  '*  Athenion  st elite 
elch  dem  Aquillius  in  offener  Feldschlacht  eutgegen,  fiel  aber  in  derselben  darcb 
die  Hand  des  Consuls,  der  selbst  an  Kopf  und  Brust  verwundet  wurde.” 

62  Diod.  XXXVI.  X.  1.  Kai  wpo?  axnuv  Se  tov  /3aaiA«a  twv  ano<rTa.T<i>v  'A.0rfvctava 
Wfi^aKiav,  jjpauKov  ayowa  tfwcr  rjaaro.  Kai  ravrou  fit  ¥  m.vtlktv,  avrbf  S’  tis  tt)* 
Ke<j>a\r]V  Tpwfleis  eOepanevOrf. 

68  Orellius,  Inscriptionum,  Latinarum,  Collectio,  No.  3,  308.  •*  Eidem  praetor  in 

Sicilia  fugivos  Italicorum  conquaeisivei  redideique  dominis  DCCCCXVH.” 

64  Shortly  after  this  war  another  broke  out  in  Italy  which  lasted  some  timo; 
but  although  it  was  of  bo  much  importance  that  several  of  the  historians  wrote 
valuable  descriptions  of  it  in  their  books,  the  vandals  succeeded  in  destroying 
the  pages  and  we  have  only  some  fragments  left  in  an  almost  Ulegible  form.  We 
have  however,  in  chapter  viii.  succeeded  in  picking  out  many  of  the  prominent 
•vents  of  the  Italian  slave  and  freedmen  or  tramp  war  of  this  era,  q.  v. 

66  The  evidences  lor  this  are  indeed  vague  except  by  inference.  Florus,  III. 
19,  says  Supplicium,”  which  with  him  and  Livy  always  implies  the  worst.  But 
that  almost  every  one  of  the  captured  rebels  was  crucified,  must,  by  implication 
be  accepted  even  almost  without  evidence,  other  than  the  well-known,  implaca¬ 
ble,  inexorable  Homan  Law.  which  hung  such  malefactors  of  the  servile  r* 04 
upon  the  ignominious  cross. 


272 


A  THEN  ION. 


bellion  30  years  before,  were  now  rehearsed  and  many  a 
captured  slave  perished  on  the  cross. 

But  there  still  remained  at  least  one  strong  man  named 
Satyros  who,  with  the  other  bold  lieutenants  of  Athenion, 
fell  to  marauding  and  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  procon¬ 
sul  prolonged  the  struggle 66  for  two  years.  Satyros  and 
his  men  were  however,  in  B.  C.  99,  all  captured  and  taken 
to  Rome,  under  the  promise  solemnly  conferred  by  the 
Roman  general,  that  as  a  condition  of  capitulation  they 
should  be  exempt  from  punishment  and  treated  with  honor 
as  prisoners  of  war.  The  perfidious  wretch  had  no  sooner 
gotten  the  prisoners  in  safety  to  Rome,  than  he  offered  them 
to  the  aristocracy  as  the  basis  of  a  great  triumph  or  ovation 
which  he  claimed,  as  an  honor  to  the  hero  who  had  sup¬ 
pressed  the  rebellion.  The  poor  creatures  were  dragged 
into  the  arena  on  a  given  day,  and  told  that  instead  of  lib¬ 
erty,  their  horrible  doom  was  to  amuse  the  ladies  of  Rome 
and  others,  who  for  love  of  show  frequented  the  amphi¬ 
theatre  to  view  the  bloody  contests  of  gladiators.  Not 
only  were  they  destined  to  this  but  they  must  fight  wild 
beasts  like  slaves.  The  great  auditorium  was  crowded  with 
spectators,  among  whom  beat  true  hearts  for  humanity  and 
fairness.  A  characteristic  of  the  great  gladiatorial  games 
always  had  been  and  still  was  at  that  time,  that  of  demo¬ 
cracy.  All  classes,  rich,  poor,  the  eminent  and  the  lowly 
alike  had  seats;  and  as  there  was  at  that  moment  a  fierce 
war  of  tactics  raging  between  the  labor  organizations  and 
the  aristocracy  and  as  a  strong  partisanship  existed  against 
Aquillius  and  every  one  of  the  praetors  who  had  been  sent 
out  against  the  slaves  and  freedmen  fighting  for  liberty  in 
Sicily,  it  was  very  natural  that  such  a  party  would  numer¬ 
ously  attend  the  great  ovation,  if  for  nothing  more  than  to 
pick  up  points  against  Ibis  aristocrat  whom  they  hated. 

When  the  convicts  arrived  in  chains,  trembling  with 
disappointment  and  broken  hearts  and  like  the  wild  lions, 
tigers  and  hyenas  they  were  to  fight,  found  themselves 


se  Livy,  LXIX.  EpiL  ad  fin.  “M.  Aquillius  proconsul  in  Sicilia  helium  civil* 
excitatum  confecit.  Marius  was  one  oi  the  consuls  of  this  year,  and  Diodorus 
tells  us  that  Aquillius  was  the  other.  This  looks  doubtful.  Rome  was  at  that 
moment  involved  in  the  fierce  agrarian  agitations :  Cf.  id,  “  et  cum  legem  agra- 
riam  per  vim  tullisset,”  etc.  True,  Livy  may  refer  to  his  proconsulship  as  being 
the  extension  of  his  service  in  Sicily  through  the  next  two  years,  (B.  C.  99),  as 
the  war  did  not  close  for  2  years  alter  the  battle.  Again  this  ma;i  rectify  the 
duerepancy  in  Aquillius’  inscription,  See  note  61. 


LAST  BATTLE  IN  THE  AMPHITHEATRE.  273 


thrust  loose  and  suddenly  given  knives  and  other  weapons, 
they  all  mutually,  in  presence  of  the  great  throng  frenzied 
with  wine,  nervously  betting,  many  in  anticipation  of  behold¬ 
ing  blood  spurting  from  their  naked  forms,  solemnly  agreed 
to  become  each  others’  mutual  exterminators. 

Satyros  led  the  mutual  fratricide.  Seizing  their  weapons 
they  rushed  upon  each  other  with  all  the  fury  to  which  they 
had  for  5  years  been  wont.  The  audience  were  thrilled 
and  astonished.  The  heroic  fellows,  one  after  another, 
fell,  gashed  and  pierced  with  their  own  daggers;  while 
the  remaining  warriors,  girding  their  courage  by  the  ex¬ 
citement  and  din,  drove  the  knife  deep  into  each  others* 
brave  hearts.  All  had  fallen  and  lay  gasping,  the  hot  blood 
draining  their  bodies  of  both  spirit  and  vitality.  Satyros, 
the  powerful  Greek,  was  still  upon  his  feet.  Without  fal¬ 
tering  he  drove  his  wreapon  deep  into  his  own  breast  and  thus 
triumphantly  expired. 

This  magnificent  stroke  of  courage  recoiled  badly  against 
the  perfidious  Aqnillius  who  had  treacherously  lied  them 
out  of  their  lives.  The  word  rang  out  that  the  glory  of 
these  brave  men’s  fall  was  infinitely  grander  than  that  of 
the  wretch  whose  vanity  was  to  be  puffed  by  an  ovation.*1 
A  reaction  then  and  there  set  in  against  the  fellow  and  one 
L.  Fufius,  soon  afterwards  brought  suit  against  him  for  ex¬ 
tortion  and  malfeasance  which  was  so  energetically  pressed 
that  the  great  orator  Antonius  had  to  be  engaged  to  save 
his  life.  He  was  retained  for  the  trial  and  succeeded  only 
by  seizing  Aquillius,  and  tearing  open  his  clothing  during 
an  impassioned  gush  of  eloquence,  and  exhibiting  to  the  peo¬ 
ple  the  wounds  which  he  had  actually  received  in  the  duel 
with  Athenion  at  the  battle  before  Macella.68  But  even  this 
did  not  save  the  fellow’s  life;  for  where  there  lurks  an  enemy 
in  public  opinion  there  also  lurks  a  means.  Aquillius  who 
afterwards  fell  a  prisoner  to  Mithridates  wTas  taken  to  Per- 
gamus  and  in  a  horrible  manner  was  tied  back  down  upon 
a  stone  and  held  there  while  the  gold  melters  poured  a  la¬ 
dle  full  of  melted  gold  down  his  throat.6® 

67  Viele  meinten,  grosser  sei  der  Ruhm  der  Gefallenen  ala  der  Ruhm  dec 

tlberlebenden  Siegers.”  Sicittsche  Sklavenkriege,  S.  31. 

63  Livy,  Epitome  to  book  LXX.  “  cum  M.  Aquilliils  de  pecuniis  repetundis 
cauam  diceret,  ipse  judices  rogare  noluit.  M.  Antonius,  qui  pro  eo  perorabat, 
tunicam  a  pectore  ejus  discidit,  ut  lionestas  cicatrices  ostenderet,  indubitantui 
abeolutbB  est.” 

69  Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.  XXXIII.  14.  ‘‘Nec  jam  Quiritium  aliquo,  sed  universe 
nomine  Romano  infami,  rax  Mithridates  Aqtiilio  duci  capto.  aurumiu  o-1  iivudii 


274 


ATHENION. 


LaouIHu  and  Servilius,  the  praetors  whom  Athenion  had 

defeated  and  driven  from  Sicily,  as  we  have  related,  were 
also  both  accused  of  robbery  and  malfeasance  in  office  and 
banished  from  Rome  into  perpetual  exile.1* 

to  It  is  hardly  to  be  wondered  at  that  early  commentators  misunderstand  Hu 
true  principles  involved  in  this  great  war,  or  that  they  misapply  the  true  facts 
in  the  case.  Both  Granier  and  O’Brien  fail  to  comprehend  at  all  that  there  ex¬ 
isted  a  socialistic  cult  of  great  but  secret  influence  which  had  a  powerful  effect 
upon  the  minds  of  the  men  involved  in  all  those  troubles.  Granier,  HisUAre  det 
Classes  Ouvrilres,  p.  496,  characterizes  them  as  “  bandits,”  as  follows:  “  Un  trait 
fort  ceractei'istique,  et  qui  fut  commun  a  Eunus  et  a  Athenion,  o’est  qu’en  se  r6* 
voltant  ils  n’eurent  ni  l’un  ni  l’autre  l’idee  d'abolir  l’esclavage  et  d’6tablir  l’6galit4. 
A  peine  au  milieu  de  leurs  armies,  ils  se  haterent  d’oublier  qu’ils  avaient  le  cou 
pele  par  la  chaine,  et  de  pouter  avec  delices  les  prerogatives  de  la  seigneurie, 
D’abord,  ce  qui  est  facile  a  croire,  les  chateaux,  les  villages,  les  villes,  furent  mis 
au  pillage.”  So  Mr.  James  Bronterre  O’Brien,  an  honest  and  kind-hearted  writer 
who  devoted  nis  life  to  his  fellow-men,  amid  persecutions,  likewise  misunder¬ 
stands  the  ancients.  He  says  (Rise,  Progress  and  Phases  of  Human  Slavery,  p.  31), 
speaking  of  upholding  the  dignity  of  human  nature,  that  in  these  conflicts  “there 
was  nothing  of  the  sort.  The  harsh  conduct  of  masters  and  the  violation  of 
workhouse  rules  were  the  motive  power  of  each  revolt.”  The  fact  is  that  the 
workhouses  he  mentions  were,  as  we  have  shown,  dungeons,  often  underground 
and  intolerable  hells  ;  and  those  poor  people  were  chained  down  in  them,  and 
in  the  morning  marched  in  chains  to  the  fields.  The  systematised  workhouses 
with  which  these  writars  become  confounded,  were  those  of  the  later  Augustan 
age.  To  get  into  the  ergasltdum  of  Sicily  or  Italy  before  the  emperors,  was  a  ser¬ 
ious  thing,  and  we  know  oi  no  rules  whatever  in  Sicily  restricting  the  master’s 
will.  He  could  kill  his  slave  or  keep  him  without  rule.  Mr.  O’Brien  and  M. 
Granier  de  Cassagnac  are  both  entirely  w  rong  in  saying  that  there  was  neither 
premeditation  nor  purpose  in  these  great  revolts.  They  charge  against  Eunus 
and  Athenion  that  “  they  began  forthwith  to  ap  e  the  pomp  and  the  circumstance 
of  their  oppressors.”  Every  action  of  Eunus  and  of  Athenion  on  the  contrary, 
was  incontestably  pre-det  named;  and  the  fire- spit  ting  prestigiation  of  Eunus 
and  Satyros,  as  well  as  the  purple  and  silver  staff  of  Athenion,  were  indispensa¬ 
ble  to  inspire  their  uncouth,  uperstitious  soldiers  with  feelings  of  awe  and  rev¬ 
erence.  necessary  to  order  and  discipline.  In  fact  this  was  the  key  to  thflr  sua 
cess. 


0 


CHAPTER  XII. 


SPARTACUS. 

THE  IRASCIBLE  PLAN  TESTED  ON  AH 
ENORMOUS  SCALE 

Ruw,  Vicissitudes  and  Fall  of  a  Great  General — The  Strike  of 
the  Gladiators — Grievances  that  led  to  the  Trouble — Growth 
of  Slavery  through  Usurpation  of  the  Land  by  the  arrogant 
Optimates — What  is  known  of  Spartacus  before  being  Sold 
into  Slavery — Bolt  of  the  78  Gladiators  from  the  Ergastulum 
of  Lentulus  at  Capua — Escape  of  the  Runaways — How  they 
seized  Weapons — Vesuvius — First  Battle — Battle  of  the  Cliffs 
— Rout  of  Clodius — Second  Battle — Destruction  of  a  Praeto¬ 
rian  Army — Battle  of  the  Mineral  Baths — Great  Increase  of 
the  Rebel  Force — From  a  petty  Strike  it  assumes  the  Propor¬ 
tions  of  Revolution — Fourth  Battle;  Hilt  to  Hilt  with  Va- 
rinius — Destruction  of  the  Main  Army  of  the  Romans — Win¬ 
ter  Quarters  of  Spartacus  at  Metapontem — Honor,  Discipline 
and  Temperance  of  the  Workingmen — Proofs  by  Pliny  and 
Plutarch — Coalition  with  the  Organized  Laborers  of  Italy — 
Uses  of  Gold  and  other  Ornaments  Forbidden- -Wine  Ban¬ 
ished — Great  Numbers  Employed  in  the  Armories  of  Sparta¬ 
cus — Fifth  Battle — Battle  of  Mt.  Garganus — Ambuscade  of 
Arrius — Overthrow  and  Death  of  Crixus — Sixth  Battle — 
Spartacus  Destroys  the  Consular  Army  of  Poplicola — Sev¬ 
enth  Battle — Great  Conflict  of  the  River  Po — Overthrow  of 
Cassius  and  Defeat  of  the  10,000  Romans — Spartacus,  now 
Master,  assumes  the  Offensive — Eighth  Battle — Lentulus  De¬ 
feated;  Great  Army  nearly  annihilated — Mortification  and 
Terror  of  the  Romans — Ninth  Battle — ALutina — Proconsul 
Ca3sius  again  Routed  in  a  Disastrous  Convict  with  the  wary 
Gladiator — Spartacus  now  obliged  to  contend  with  the  De¬ 
mon  of  Insubordination — Crassus  elected  Consul — Reverses 
Begin — On  down  to  Rhegium — Sedition,  Treachery ,  Betrayal 
— Workingmen's  own  Jealousies,  Insubordination  and  Lack 


276 


S  PART  AC  US. 


of  Diplomacy  cause  their  final  Ruin — Tenth  Battle — Scaling 
of  the  Six-Mile  Ramparts  by  Spartacus — Battle  of  Croton — 
Destruction  of  the  Seceders,  G-ranicus  and  Castus — Obstinate 
Fighting — Spartacus  arrives  and  checks  the  Carnage — Pe- 
telia,  the  Eleventh  Battle — Victory — Twelfth  Battle;  Silarus 
— Last  and  most  Bloody  Encounter — Spartacus,  stabbing  his 
Horse,  Rushes  sword  drawn,  in  search  of  Grassns — Heaps 
of  the  slain — Dying  like  a  King — End  of  the  War — The  great 
Supplicium — Pompey  and  Crassus,  emulous  of  meagre  Hon¬ 
ors — Inhuman  Cruelties — Awful  Wreaking  of  Vengeance  on 
the  Cross — Dangling  Bodies  of  6.000  Crucified  Workingmen 
along  the  Appian  Way — Thousands  of  Others  crucified — Ut¬ 
ter  Failure  of  the  Irascible  Plan  of  Deliverance. 


As  physical  science  informs  ns  of  convulsions  in  nature 
called  by  geologists,  the  Permian  age  which  brought  the 
pakeo2oic  era  to  an  end  and  left,  after  its  prodigious  up¬ 
heavals,  the  calm  in  which  we  live,  so  historical  fragments 
and  palatographs  inform  us  of  great  social  cataclysms  im¬ 
mediately  preceding  the  immense  calm  that  began  to  en¬ 
velop  human  society  during  the  reign  of  Augustus,  rooted 
into  it  by  the  visit  and  labors  of  Jesus.  The  desperate  so¬ 
cial  upheaval  here  referred  to — the  last  in  the  line — was 
that  of  the  gladiators  under  Spartacus,  B.  C.  74-70. 

In  introducing  this  mighty  conflict  of  Spartacus — the 
greatest  and  last  of  all  the  ancient  struggles  coming  into 
our  categories  of  the  “  irascible  ”  against  the  “  concupis¬ 
cent,”  and  undertaken  by  labor,  in  its  plan  of  salvation 
from  the  horrors  of  slavery  and  suffering — we  find  it  nec¬ 
essary  to  sketch  an  outline  of  the  condition  which  matters 
were  in  during  tl;e  century  preceding  the  advent  of  J esus, 
who  was  the  next  reformer  in  chronological  order. 

Of  all  the  methods  of  systematic  cruelty  practiced  upon 
the  ancient  lowly,  that  of  the  gladiatorial  games  excelled ; 
and  it  is  our  duty,  in  order  that  the  reader  may  see  the 
whole  truth  laid  bare,  which  actuated  this  rebellion,  to 
quote  a  few  specimen  descriptions  of  that  ferocious 
amusement,  from  the  authors  and  the  slabs.  Athenseus, 
quoting  the  lost  work  of  Nicolaus  Damascenus,  describes 
in  unmistakable  language,  the  horrible  custom  common 
at  that  time.  He  says  it  was  a  common  thing  for  rich 
men  to  invite  guests  to  dinner  and  after  the  wine  and 
other  intoxicating  stimulants  began  to  madden  them,  to 


HORRORS  OF  THE  AMPHITHEATRE.  277 


introduce  gladiators  into  some  ring  or  private  amphithe¬ 
atre.  As  these  poor  creatures,  driven  by  the  foreman  to 
fight,  cut  each  others’  throats,  boisterous  applause  and 
laughter  at  the  scene  were  indulged  in.  Sometimes  beau¬ 
tiful  women  were  thus  forced  to  attack  and  butcher 
each  other  in  the  same  manner  as  the  men.  Large 
sums  of  money  were  paid  for  these  innocent  victims,  for 
no  other  purpose  than  to  toy  with  this  inhuman  passion 
in  the  male  and  female  guests,  for  beholding  atrocities  of 
this  ghastly  nature  while  they  wallowed  in  inebriate  and 
lascivious  beastliness.  Often  small  children  were  driven 
naked  into  the  arena,  given  knives,  and  forced,  for  the 
amusement  of  these  truculent  nobles,  to  struggle  in  the 
iwful  qualms  of  danger  and  death  until  the  little  innocents, 
one  or  more,  fell  dying  in  their  bath  of  blood.1 

Gladiatorial  games,  as  we  have  shown  in  our  chapter, 
on  amusements,  were  the  real  origin  of  wakes ;  and  of  this 
we  possess  the  evidence  of  Valerius  Maximus.  Some  264 
years  before  Christ,  two  brothers  named  Marcus  and 
Decimus  Brutus,  on  the  deatli  of  their  father,  a  lord  of  a 
gens,  possessing  slaves,  held  in  his  honor  and  at  his  fun¬ 
eral,  a  gladiatorial  combat.  There  being  no  amphitheatre 
at  that  early  date,  the  Forum  Boarium  was  used,  and  a 
permit  was  granted  by  the  city.  Appius  Claudius  and 
M.  Fulvius  were  the  consuls.2  One  need  not  wonder  that 
x  license  was  granted  to  butcher  workingmen  by  a  mons- 
ser  like  Appius  Claudius.  He  hated  them  and  was  strug- 

i  Scharabach,  Der  Italische  Sclavenaufstand,  S.  7-8,  quotes  In  proof  of  thU, 
Nicolaus  Damascenus,  indirectly  as  follows:  “In  dem  gewaltigen  Geschlchts- 
jverke  des  Nicolaus  Damascenus  warde  dor  Sklavenkrieg'  in  110,  Bnche  gehan- 
delt,  aus  dem  uns  bei  A  then,  IV,  pag.  153  F.  (fragm.  84  bei  Miiller  fragm.  hist. 
graec.  Ill,  pag.  417)  elnFragment  erkalten  1st,  welches  in  der  von  M.  gegebenen 
fatelnischen  Uebersetzung,  die  ich  der  Allgemainverstandlichkeit.  wegen  statt  dea 

f;riechischen  Textes  bier  gebe,  folgendermassen  lantet:  Nicolaus  Damascenus. 
'eripateticae  eectae  philosophus,  libro  historiaruin  decimo  supra  centesimum 
Romanos  ecribit  inter  coenandum  giadiatorum  paria  committere  solitos,  his  ver 
bis :  giadiatorum  autem  spectacula  non  solum  in  publicie  couventibus  et  amphi- 
theatris  edunt  Romani,  invecto  ab  Etruecis  more,  sed  etiaru  inter  epulas.  Itaque 
amicos  adcoenarn  iuvitant  Interdnm.  turn  ut  alia,  turn  ut  duo  triave  giadiatorum 
paria  dimicantia  iis  exhibeant.  Igitar  postquam  vino  ac  dapibus  sese  mgurgita- 
runt.  introduci  jubent  gladiatores;  quorum  ubi  qnis  jngulatur,  universi  cunvivao 
plaulunt  eo  spectaculo  exhilarati.  Quidem  etiaui  in  testameuto  jussit  mu  bores 
foriiiosas,  qnas  emerat,  ferro  inter  se  dimicare;  alius  item  puoros  impuberos, 
quos  in  delicits  habuerat.  Sed populus earn  atrocitatein  deteatatns  testameuto iu 
eorum  irritnin  esse  jussit.  l>as  Ganze  macht  den  Eindruck,  als  babe  es  zur  A!o 
tivirung  des  Aufstandee  gedient.'’ 

2  Valerius  Maximus.  De  Sfioctaculit,  7;  “  Gladiatorium  mumis  primum  Roma* 
datum  est  in  foro  boario,  An  <  "audio,  M.  FulvioCoss.  dederuut  M.  &  D.  It  nit  i, 
funebri  memoria  pairis  ciueiee  iouorando.  Alhleiarum  eertamen  a  M  Souij 
Vactum  est  muniticentia. " 


278 


SPAliTACUS. 


piling  to  suppress  them  and  their  unions  even  at  that  early 
time.  Thyse,  who  arranged  the  Lugdunum  edition  of 
Valerius  Maximus,  adds  that  slaves  were  sacrificed  on  fu¬ 
neral  occasions  of  such  men.8  The  origin  then  is  fetish 
and  belongs  to,  and  must,  like  many  other  inhuman  rites, 
and  practices,  be  charged  to  religion. 

As  an  instance  that  gladiators  were  the  game  of  priests 
and  priestcraft  not  only  at  Rome,  but  even  in  North 
America  among  the  less  ancient  Aztecs,  we  may  cite  Ban¬ 
croft,  on  the  Nahuas.  He  says,  speaking  of  the  feast  of 
Xipe:  “The  next  day  another  batch  of  prisoners  called 
oavanti ,  whose  top  hair  had  been  shaved,  were  brought 
out  for  sacrifice.  In  the  meantime  a  number  of  young 
men  also  named  tototecti,  began  a  gladiatorial  game,  a  bur¬ 
lesque  on  the  real  combat  to  follow,  dressing  themselves 
in  the  skins  of  the  flayed  (human)  victims.” 

The  story  of  these  victims  is  told  on  the  preceding  page 
as  follows:  “Let  us  now  proceed  with  the  feast  of  Xipe. 
We  left  a  part  of  the  doomed  victims  on  their  way  to 
death.  Arrived  at  the  summit  of  the  temple  each  one  is 
led  in  turn  to  the  alter  of  sacrifice,  seized  by  the  grim, 
merciless  priests,  and  thrown  upon  the  stone;  the  high- 
priest  draws  near,  the  knife  is  lifted,  there  is  one  great 
cry  of  agony,  a  shuffle  of  feet  as  the  assistants  are  swayed 
to  and  fro  by  the  death-struggles  of  their  victim,  then  all 
is  silent  save  the  mutterings  of  the  high-priest  as  high  in 
air  he  holds  the  smoking  heart,  while  from  far  down  be¬ 
neath  comes  a  low  hum  of  admiration  from  the  thousands 
of  upturned  faces.”4 

This  picture  almost  exactly  corresponds  with  the  glad¬ 
iatorial  horrors  of  the  time  of  Spartacus  at  Rome,  Capua 

s  Thysii,  Recensio nova  Lvgd,  Batavorum ,  1651 :  “Gladiatorum  inunus.  Origo 
Glad;atorum  a  re  funebri:  exemplum  ab  Hetrnscis,  At  fortasse  Hetrusci  ipsi  £ 
GrticCis  Undecunque  exempltrhi,  causa  tameii  and  origo  lunus.  Nam  quoniam 
olim  animat*  ctefunctorum  humano  sanguine  propitian  creditam  erat,  captivoa 
vel  alto  ingenio  servos  mercati  in  exsequiis  immolabant.  Fostea  placuit  lmpie- 
tatem  vo.nptate  adumbrate:  itaque  duos  paraverant.  armis  quibus  tnnc  et  qual* 
iter  poterant  eruditos,  mox  edicto  die  feriarum,  apud  tumulos  erogabant.  I'mc 
muneris  origo.  Atque  Gladiatores  illi  a  busti  cineribus  Bustnarii  dicti.  Lips  tut 
Gladiatorium  inunus.  Yulgo,  glndiatorum,  quod  gladiatorium  Livio  aliisque  di- 
citur  .  non  enim  gladiatorum  munus  illud  erat,  sed  ejue  qui  gladiatores  pngnantes 
populo  exhibebat.”  pp.  170-171. 

r  Bancroft,  Native  Races,  Vol.  II,  pp .  358-359.  These  horrors  were  extracted 
from  the  histories  of  Las  Casas,  c'lavigero,  Gomorra  and  others.  The  Christians 
were  furious  against  the  practice  and  broke  it  up,  for  which  they  have  been 
maligned.  There  seeniB  indeed  no  doubt  that  in  breaking  it  up  they  committed 
faults  ;  but  the  great  anti-slavery  movement  of  Las  Casas,  which  ”varred  against 
every  cruelty,  freed  Mexico  from  these  two  pests  long  ago. 


WAKING  THE  DEAD  WITH  BLOOD. 


27  9 


and  hundreds  of  provincial  towns  all  over  Italy.  Where 
history  fails  the  inscriptions  come  to  the  front  with  their 
irrepressible  language,  making  up  the  gaps.  These  are 
seemingly  innumerable.  A  peculiar  character  resembling 
the  Greek  theta  expresses  the  violent  death  of  the  gladia¬ 
tor  mentioned  on  the  slab.  Orelli’s  catalogue  entitled  Res 
Scenica  teems  with  them.8  As  a  rule  they  may  be  consid¬ 
ered  epitaphs;  for  after  the  dead  gladiator  had  been 
dragged  off  the  sands  his  body  was  generally  given  up  to 
his  friends,  some  of  whom  were  organized  in  the  numer¬ 
ous  unions,  and  hence  the  occasional  laudatory  words  on 
his  character,  his  affection  for  his  family,  his  skill  in  the 
use  of  weapons. 

But  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  these  poor  peo¬ 
ple  had  a  mutual  or  reciprocatory  terror  of  these  scenes 
which  were  almost  sure  to  terminate  only  with  their  lives. 

When  M.  Valerius  Lsevinus  died  B.  C,  200,  his  sons 
forced  fifty  of  the  old  man’s  slaves  to  begore  his  grave 
with  their  blood.  Flaminius,  25  years  later,  on  the  occa¬ 
sion  of  his  father’s  death,  caused  74  gladiators  who  had 
been  hired  for  the  service,  to  balm  with  their  blood  his 
ghost  about  to  be  deposited  under  the  sacred  hearth.  The 
emperor  Trajan  once  ordered  a  vast  gladiatorial  orgie 
lasting  123  days.  Not  less  than  10,000  gladiators  were 

6  Orellius,  Inscriptionum  Latinarium  Selectarum  Collectio,  Noe.  2,551.  “  Poet- 

elius,  Syrus  lanista  ad  Aram  Forinarum .  ubi  negotiatorem  familias 

gladiatorire  habes ;  2,552  is  a  slab  on  wnich  are  lettered  certain  data  about  one 
Cornelius  Froutin  ;  how  he  won  liberty  at  the  great  games  and  liberty  for  his 
children.  It  was  found  on  the  Appian  Way  and  catalogued  by  Mur.  No.  620,  4 ; 
2,554;  2,555  is  one  of  which  considerable  mention  has  been  made;  “Inscrip- 
tiones  gladiatoriaa  in  Opere  musivo  Romce  nsservato  apud  Marini,  Atti.  1,  p. 
165.”  It  is  two  inscriptions  In  one,  recording  the  death  by  the  steel  of  both, 
“Astianax.  vicit.  Kalendio  death),  Astianax,  Kalendio  (death  or  killed ).  Quibus 
pugnantibus  Simmachus  ferrum  Maternus  habilis  misit.”  So  No.  2,556,  remark¬ 
able  inscriptions  discovered  at  Pompeii,  showing  that  gladiators  fought  with 
wild  beasts  Romenelli,  Viaggio  a  Pompeii.  Rome,  I,  p.  82.  Another  (No.  2,645), 
tells  in  the  words  of  an  epitaph,  moro  than  a  chapter  of  history.  A  gladiator  had 
fought  eight  times  in  these  games  Defore  he  fell,  and  so  skillfully  had  he  des¬ 
patched  his  fellow  adversaries  whom  the  betters  had  pitted  against  him  that  he 
received  floral  decorations  and  much  applause.  But  we  have  not  space  to  men¬ 
tion  more  than  a  few  of  the  extremely  numerous  specimens  As  to  the  average 
years  which  gladiators  lived  we  find  these  data  carefully  figured  by  Schambach 
from  the  inscriptions  of  Orelli  as  follows:  “  Ueber  sein  Alter  ”  (meaning  the  age 
of  Spartacus)  “  ist  uns  zwar  von  den  Alten  nichts  berichtet;  trotzdem  maent 
dicser  Punct  noch  nicht  die  grozten  Schwierigkeiten.  Das  man  zu  Fechtern 
vorwiegend  Leute  in  jungen  oder  mittleren  Lebensjahren  wahlie,  ist  nattirlich; 
die  erhaltenen  Sepulcralinschriften  auf  gefallenen  Fechter  bestiitigen  dies.  Wit 
linden  in  den  Inscr.  lat.  ed  Hagenb.  et  Orelli  folgende  Todesjahre  verzeichnet  j 
22  (nr.  2,572),  27  (nr.  2,592),  3<>  (nr.  2.571).  46  (nr.  2,590)  und  schwerlich 
wird  das  zuletzt  angegebene  Lebensjahr  offers  Tberschritten  sein  Wir  werden 
also  nicht  weit  fehl  gehen,  wenn  wir  uns  fipanacus  als  einen  Mann  zwischen 
30  und  40  vorstellen,”  Italischer  Sklavenauf stand ,  S.  15-16, 


SPARTACUS. 


*80 

obliged  to  fight  and  die  in  the  combat  for  the  worse  than 
beastly  gratification  of  that  degenerate  humanity. 

At  Capua,  Pompeii,  Prseneste,  Ravenna,  Alexandria  in 
upper  Etruria,  even  in  Gaul  and  among  the  Germans, 
these  games  of  gladiatorial  carnage  were  fashionable. 
Commodus  upheld  them,  Domitian  extended  them,  and 
finally,  and  to  their  shame  be  it  said,  even  the  Christians 
themselves  left  the  noble  principles  and  precepts  of  their 
master  and  for  the  paltry  baubles  of  adulation  and  of  im¬ 
perial  favor,  fell  back  into  the  ghastly  heathenism  of  the 
amphitheatre.6 7  But  fortunately  for  future  civilization, 
this  did  not  occur  until  the  cult  of  the  so-called  early 
Christians  had  firmly  taken  root  among  workingmen,  the 
terrible  system’s  victims ;  and  even  to  this  day  it  is  this 
element  that  alone  is  manfully  fighting  an  d  resisting  cruelty. 

De  Quincey,  in  his  characteristic  language,  tells  the 
story  of  Caligula  who  took  delight  in  feeding  the  wild  ani¬ 
mals  of  the  amphitheatres  with  the  quivering  flesh  of  hu¬ 
man  beings.  He  brings  his  story  in,  incidentally,  as  an 
instance  as  follows: 

*  On  some  occasion  it  happened  that  a  dearth  prevailed, 
either  generally  of  cattle,  or  of  such  cattle  as  were  used 
for  feeding  the  wild  beasts  reserved  for  the  bloody  exhibi¬ 
tions  of  the  amphitheatre.  Food  could  be  had  and  per¬ 
haps  at  no  very  exorbitant  price,  but  on  terms  somewhat 
higher  than  the  ordinary  market  price.  A  slight  excuse 
served  with  Caligula  for  acts  the  most  monstrous.  In¬ 
stantly  repairing  to  the  public  jails  and  causing  all  the 
prisoners  to  pass  in  review  before  him  custodiarum  seriem 
recognoscens ,  he  pointed  to  two  bald-headed  men,  and  or¬ 
dered  that  the  whole  file  of  the  intermediate  persons  should 
be  marched  off  to  the  dens  of  the  wild  beasts.  ‘  Tell  them 
off  ’  said  he,  ‘from  the  bald  man  to  the  bald  man.’  Yet 
these  were  prisoners  committed,  not  for  punishment,  but 
trial.” ' 

From  the  earliest  times  of  which  history  gives  any  record, 
brigandage  or  marauding  was  not  only  common  but  in 
many  countries  quite  popular.8  It  was  the  natural  outcome 

6  Guhl  and  Koner,  Life  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans ,  pp.  554-680. 

7  De  Quincy,  Ancient  Histories  and  Antiquities ,  pp  88-9. 

8  Carey,  Principles  of  Social  Science,  Vol.  I  p.  189.  Kent  is  original  brigand¬ 
age  differentiated  by  refinement.  “  Opportunity  makes  the  robbfl\ ,  ar.d  the  most 
(ferine  among  them  becomes  the  leader  of  the  band.  One  bf  one,  the  people 


THE  FIRST  BRIGANDS. 


281 


of  the  competitive  system,  forcing  the  patricians  or  gent 
families  of  high-born  rank,  to  co-operate  with  each  other, 
and  in  Greece,  to  form  interprotective  fratries,  in  home, 
curies *  which  may  be  regarded  as  first  evidences  of  that 
differentiation  that  made  nations  out  of  isolated  families.10 
Much  of  this  marauding  spirit  was  the  result  of  their 
abuse  practiced  against  slaves  whose  intelligent  sensibili¬ 
ties  to  maltreatment  they  little  understood.  Although 
those  slaves  had  neither  social  or  political  liberty  they 
bad  minds  and  strong  physical  vitality.11  These  they  of¬ 
ten  used  in  self  defense.  It  was  not  uncommon  for  them 
to  take  control  of  their  own  lives,  escape  into  the  mount¬ 
ains  whose  caverns  and  jungles  afforded  them  protection, 
and  organize  nightly  expeditions  against  those  whom  they 
considered  their  common  foe.  Some  of  them  became  bold 
and  chivalrous  bandits.  Only  on  extremely  rare  occasions 
does  their  history  appear  in  the  writings  of  the  chroni¬ 
clers  of  their  times  probably  because  of  the  contempt  for 
them  as  being  mere  property,  which  was  entertained  by 
the  ruling  society,  whose  interests  the  historians  were  of¬ 
ten  forced  to  serve. 

Historians  were  mostly  of  the  aristocratic  or  noble 
stock ;  because,  as  their  business  was  to  record  the  deeds 
of  heroes,  the  laboring  race  was  considered  too  insignifi¬ 
cant  to  do  that  work.  So  in  earlier  times  soldiers  were 
of  nobler  stock  than  workingmen,  for  the  same  reason. 
Thus  we  find  in  almost  every  instance,  that  historians 
were  of  noble  blood,  while  sculptors,  architects,  poets  and 
teachers  were  descendants  from  the  slaves.18 


who  desire  to  live  by  their  own  labor  are  plundered;  and  thus  are  they  who  pre¬ 
fer  the  work  of  plunder  enabled  to  pass  their  time  in  dissipation .  The  leader 
divides  the  spoil,  and  with  its  help  is  enabled  to  augment  the  number  of  bis  fol¬ 
lowers,  and  thus  to  enlarge  the  sphere  or  his  depredations.  With  the  gradual  In¬ 
crease  of  the  little  community,  he  is  led,  however,  to  commute  with  them  fora 
certain  share  of  their  produce,  which  he  calls  rent,  or  tax  or  tattle” 

8  For  an  interesting  discussion  of  the  gentes  or  gentiles  which  we  designate 
the  gens  families,  see  Morgan’s  Ancient  Society,  Chapter  II,  pp.  62-70. 

10  Florus,  lib.  Ill,  cap.  20.  §1,  (Fisher)  denies  this,  unable  to  understand  the 
possibility  of  equality  by  merit.  “Nam  etsi  ipsl  (meaning  slaves  as  compared 
with  gladiators)  per  foitunam  in  omnia  obnoxii;  tamen  quasi  secundum  homi- 
num  genus  sunt.'’  (NoteC). 

11  Fustel  de  Coulanges,  La  CM  Antique,  p.  118,  chap.  X.  “La  signification 
vrale  defamilia  est  propriety-,  elle  designe  le  champ,  la  maison,  l’argent.  les  es- 
claves,  etc.”  The  word  thus  developed  politically  and  covered  cities  and  nations 

u  Granier,  Histoiredes  Classes  Ouvri'eres,  chap.  XVI.  Also  chap.  XI,  pp.  243- 
244;  Lucian,  Somniwn,  §.  6-9;  Consult  Drumann  s  remarks  Arbeiler  und  Coni- 
nunistenin  Griechenland  und  Rom.,  S.  29-30.  Miller,  Origin  oj  Ranks,  chap.  VI, 
T\  243;  “The  ancient  institution  by  which  every  one  who  is  able  to  bear  arms 


SPARTACU& 


Among  the  most  remarkable  of  the  workingmen  of  an¬ 
cient  days  whose  genius  revolted  into  rebellion  against 
the  servile  condition,  was  Spartacus.  J udging  from  piece¬ 
meal  evidence,  scantily,  and  we  might  also  say,  stingily 
announced  by  the  historians  of  his  time,  the  deeds  of 
Spartacus,  for  valor,  for  success,  for  magnitude,  and  for 
the  terror  they  struck  into  the  hearts  of  the  proud  Hom¬ 
ans,  were  equal  if  not  superior  to  those  of  Hannibal.  The 
more  our  investigation  of  the  darkened  facts  reveals  the 
sagacity  and  purity  of  this  man,  the  more  profound  be¬ 
comes  the  respect  and  the  more  intense  the  admiration 
for  him  by  all  true  lovers  of  gallantry  and  freedom.  In 
fact,  there  are  interests  astir  in  the  human  breast  which 
must  lead  to  a  more  searching  acquaintance  with  the 
fountains  at  the  social  penetralia  of  the  times,  that  bubbled 
forth  under  his  terrible  hand  and  shook  the  social  and  po¬ 
litical  world  from  center  to  surface,  paling  the  senators 
and  tribunes  at  Home. 

Spartacus  was,  in  all  respects  a  workingman.  He  had 
no  ornamental  initials  attached  to  his  name,  such  as  be¬ 
token  any  claim  to  privileged  ancestry.  It  was  simply 
Spartacus.,, 

to  required  to  appear  in  the  field  at  his  own  charge.”  This  of  Itself  precludes 
the  lowly  who  nave  no  such  economical  means,  from  being  soldiers,  and  shows 
the  entire  absence  in  the  early  ages,  of  the  now  prevailing  socialistic  mode  of 
’evying  and  supporting  armies  by  the  state.  See  also  Guhl  and  Koner,  Lift  of 
the  Greek*  and  Roman* :  “The  contempt  against  trades  expressed  by  Cicero  is  fur¬ 
ther  illustrated  by  the  fact  of  tradesmen  being  with  few  exceptions  debarred  from 
serving  in  the  legions ;  ”  Drumann,  Idem  Romischer  Abschnitt,  8. 108,  sq.  DicMer, 
confirms  the  statements  that  poets,  artists  and  other  workers  were  of  the  lowly 
class. 

13Flor.,III,  20, 1.  “  Bellum  Spartaco  duce  concitatum  quo  nomine  appel- 
lem  nescio.”  Mommsen,  History  of  Rome,  vol.  IV,  p.  102,  Harpers’  ed.,  tries, 
because  his  deeds  were  of  so  prodigious  a  magnitude,  to  make  him  a  member  or 
a  noble  family  of  the  Spartocids ;  but  the  name  he  trumps  up  to  serve  this  silly 
conceit  is  not  Spartacus  all ;  it  was  Spardokos,  and  the  family  was  far  from  the 
home  of  our  hero  while  the  time  of  their  career  was  equally  distant.  Mommsen’s 
exact  words  translated  are :  “  Spartacus,  perhaps  a  scion  of  the  noble  family  of 
the  Spartocids  which  attained  even  to  royal  honors  in  its  Thracian  home  and  in 
Panticapsenm,  had  served  among  the  Thracian  auxiliaries  in  the  Roman  army, 
had  deserted  and  gone  as  a  brigand  to  the  mountains,  and  had  been  there  recap¬ 
tured  and  destined  for  the  gladiatorial  games.*’  Schambach  makes  this  vaguely 
conjectural,  and  succeeds  only  in  repeating  the  well-known  fact  that  In  Thrace 
the  name  Sportox,  Sportokos  and  Spardokas  was  about  as  common  as  our  name 
Smith.  He  says,  ( Italische  Sklavenauf stand,  S.  15) :  “  Dass  Spartacus  von  Geburt 
ein  Thraker  gewesen,  darin  stimmen  alle  Nachrichten  tiberein ;  Plutarch  fttgt 
noch  hinzu,  er  habe  einem  Nomadenstamme  angehort.  Eine  thrakische  Staut 

51eichen  Namens  wird  von  Stephanus  von  Byzanz,  s.  v.  erwiihnt :  aus  Thuc.  II, 
01  lernen  wir  einen  Glied  des  odrystschen  Konighauses  kennen,  das  den  Namen 
STrapSoKo?  fiihrt.  Durch  Inschriften  und  Mtinzen  ist  uns  bezeugt,  das  In  dem 
bosporanischen  Herrscherhause  der  name  liraproKo^  ofters  vorkam.  Vgl.  B5ckh 
corp.  inscr.  gr.  IT,  91.  Moglieh,  das  auch  unser  Spartacus  in  seiner  Heimat  daa 
Kang  eiiiis  llauutlinus  schon  bekleidet  hat.” 


CAUSES  LEADING  TO  TEE  REVOLT.  283 


Like  all  other  prominent  persons  without  the  prestige 
of  high  rank  to  build  from,  Spartacus  rose  by  his  own 
genius.  He  arose  amongst  his  fellow  slaves  in  the  year 
74  before  Christ.  This  was  precisely  the  time  correspond¬ 
ing  with  the  movement  of  the  Roman  Senate  to  suppress 
the  right  of  organization ; 14  and  serves  as  additional  evi¬ 
dence  that  the  suppression  of  organization  among  work- 
ing  people  was  followed  by  a  great  struggle.  The  first  ap¬ 
pearance  of  Spartacus  appears  to  have  been  sixteen  years 
before  the  law  was  passed  suppressing  the  ancient  right 
of  organization.15  It  seems  evident,  that  threats  against 
the  Jus  coeundi,  or  law  permitting  free  organization,  were, 
at  the  time  Spartacus  makes  his  appearance,  being  pushed, 
with  great  fury  by  the  nobility,  on  the  3lim  pretext  that 
they  were  corrupting  the  politics  as  well  as  the  general 
morals  of  Rome.16  But  we  know  from  the  accounts  of 
the  Gracchi  that  a  furious  dissention  was  all  along,  rag- 
ing  against  the  unions  and  in  favor  of  the  suppression  of 
the  law  engraved  upon  the  Twelve  Tables  which  permitted 
free  organization;  and  the  fierco  hatred  of  the  patrician 
minority  of  the  Roman  people,  who  were  assuming  and 
monopolizing  the  public  lands  contrary  to  the  Licinian 
law — a  dead  letter — had  by  no  means  died  out.17  The 
fact  is,  that  although  this  great  social  feud  had  not 
cropped  out  in  the  time  of  the  appearance  of  Spartacus  so 
as  to  be  much  mentioned  in  any  record  of  the  time,  yet 


u  See  account  of  this  suppression  together  with  the  efforts  of  Clodius  anl 
Cicero  for  and  against  it.  in  chapter  xiii.  Trade  Unions. 

16  Mommsen,  De  CoUegius  el  Sodalicils  Roma  norum,  p.  73.  Dc  tegibus  contra 
collega  latis.  “Usque  ad  finem  saeculi  septimi  liberum  jus  coeundi  mansit.” 
The  year  Ab  Urbe  Condita  700.  Steculum  septinium,  was  B.  C,  58. 

16  Mommsen  says  that  Aseonicus  refers  to  the  year  65  beforo  Christ  in  the 
following  words:  “  Frequenter  turn  etiam  emtus  factiosorum  hominum  sine 

publica  auctoritate  malo  publico  flebant . propter  quod  postea  collegia 

pluribus  legibus  sublata  sunt,”  Of  course  these  “societies  of  pretentious  men 
without  authority ’’  to  which  Asconius  refers,  are  the  trade  and  other  labor 
unions.  (Asoon.,  In  Cornel,  p.  76.) 

i"  Centralization  of  wealth  upon  individuals  was  at  this  time  about  av  its 
highest  pitcii.  Formerly  even  the  lords  sometimes  worked  on  these  far*  is. 
Pliny  can  hardly  believe  it,  though t he  enumerates  many.  Nat.  Hist.  XVin  8. 
Plutarch,  Solon,  also  speaks  of  it.  But  working  with  one’s  own  hands  in  Agri¬ 
culture  had  disappeared  by  the  time  of  Spartacus  and  everything  was  now  drne 
by  slaves  and  free  dm  en  See  Wallace,  Number  of  Mankind,  p.  123,  referring  to 
Plutarch,  Solon,  Solon  finding  that  the  very  poorest  freedmen  who,  if  they  lid 
not  get  work,  were  seized  and  sold,  took  their  part  and  must,  therefore  be  chused 
among  the  earliest  labor  reformers  on  record.  Aot  only  Spartacus  but  g  oat 
i  d  era  at  his  time  and  before  were  seized  and  sold  into  slavery.  See  Encyclo¬ 
paedia  Itrilannica, ,  Vol.  XXI  p.653,  9th  edition.  Agathocles  tyrant  of  Syracuse 
after  murdering  10,000  of  the  people  of  Segeeta  had  sold  thr  Wet  into  slavery.  B. 
0.807.  tichambach,  8.  1-2,  Zahl  dor  Skiaven. 


284 


SPARTA  CHS. 


it  was  there,  ready  to  be  kindled  into  flame  at  any  mo¬ 
ment  and  by  any  daring  adventurer. 

The  most  terrible  enemy  of  the  plebeians,  or,  as  we 
prefer  to  call  them,  the  working  classes,  was  Cicero,1' 
whose  sense  of  justice  was  confined  to  his  own  interpre¬ 
tation  of  laws  favoring  the  privileged  class,  or  gens  fami¬ 
lies.  Strange  to  say,  in  the  year  70  B.  C.,  he  was  in  the 
act  of  prosecuting  Yerres,  the  praetor  of  Sicily,  for  acts  of 
rapacity  which  it  was  feared  would  again  cause  the  ser¬ 
vile  war  to  flame  forth  in  that  island;  a  subject  concern¬ 
ing  which  we  shall  soon  have  more  to  say ;  but  a  short 
time  afterwards  we  find  him  violently  lampooning  the 
workingmen  at  Rome  in  his  defense  of  the  laws  restrict¬ 
ing  their  organization.  We  also  find  him  slurring  Clodius, 
whose  powerful  eloquence  succeeded  in  vindicating  them 
for  a  time  and  in  bringing  odium  upon  his  name.  Study¬ 
ing  the  causes  of  the  servile  war  of  this  period  from  a 
consultation  of  the  changes  which  occurred  in  the  Roman 
law,  and  bearing,  at  the  same  time,  a  close  scrutiny  of  the 
chronicled  events  such  as  are  sparingly  afforded  by  his¬ 
torians,  together  with  such  as  we  find  engraved  on  the 
tablets  of  the  unions  before  and  after  the  promulgation 
of  the  restrictions  to  labor  organizations,  we  cannot  but 
see  that  the  wide-spread  disaffection  called  the  servile  war 
of  Spartacus 19  must  have  been  largely  caused  by  the  law 
prohibiting  and  threatening  to  prohibit  free  right  of  com¬ 
bination. 

Though  little  is  known  of  the  birth  of  Spartacus,  the 
legend  goes  that  his  father  whom  he  much  loved  was  also 
a  captive  slave;  and  that  the  young  son  of  15  years,  as  he 
held  the  head  of  his  dying  parent,  chained  and  nailed  to 
the  trunk  of  a  tree,  is  conjured  by  the  old  man  to  avenge  his 
death 30  and  that,  like  Hannibal,  he  then  and  there  vowed 
vengeance  upon  his  powerful  enemies,31  and  in  consequence 
his  terrible  spring  at  Rome  in  riper  years  was  in  obedi¬ 
ence  to  promise.  All  this  must,  for  want  of  proof,  be  re- 

18  As  evidence  that  Cicero  hated  the  plebeians  we  have  in  many  places,  quoted 
his  own  words  in  our  copious  annotations,  q.  v.  in  chapters  on  Trade  Unions. 

is  Florus,  III,  20,  init,  ennobles  it  with  the  appellation,  “  Belluw  Sparta- 

oium.” 

***  Vela,  the  Italian  sculptor  exocuted  a  group  of  statues  portraying  this  seen# 
which  was  set  up  in  London  in  1862.  Dictionnaire  Universel,  Art.  Spartacus. 

21  “Serment  do  Spartacus;  groupe  de  marbre  de  M.  Barrias,  Solon  de  1872. 
Spartacus  aine  euchainS  et  cloue  a  un  tronc  d'arbre  vieit  d’expirwr  eto."  bet 
L/idionnaire  Universel,  Art  Spartacus. 


DESCRIPTION  OF  TEE  GREAT  GLADIATOR.  285 


garded  as  romance.  But  we  come  to  the  recital  of  more 
solid  facts. 

Spartacus,  in  the  year  B.  C.  74,  was  a  man  of  giant  frame, 
handsome,  of  white  complexion  with  an  abundance  of 
dark  ringlets,  and  possessed  of  an  affable  bearing,  win¬ 
ning  and  yet  severe  in  its  magnetic  aptitude  for  com¬ 
mand.  He  was  young  for  one  of  his  experience,  knowl¬ 
edge  and  judgment  of  the  world.  He  had  been  a  shep¬ 
herd  on  his  native  plains  in  Thracian  Greece.22  While 
engaged  at  this  bucolic  calling  he  made  companionship 
with  other  young  men  unfitted  for  this  dreamy  life.  They 
attached  themselves  to  habits  of  the  numerous  mountain¬ 
eers  who  sallied  from  their  cabins  at  convenient  times  and 
attacked  Roman  soldiers  who  often  marched  through  the 
country  during  those  days  of  war  and  invasion.  At  any 
rate,  we  first  find  him  at  Capua,  a  city  situated  about 
twenty  miles  north  from  Naples.  We  also  have  evidence 28 
that  he  had  been  captured  in  Thrace,  taken  forcibly  to 
Capua  as  a  prisoner  and  on  account  of  his  powerful  phy¬ 
sique  and  peculiarly  fine  appearance,  was  trained  in  a 
school  of  gladiators  by  the  master  teacher  of  athletic 
games,  Lentulus  Batiatus.  Capua  was  then  a  consider¬ 
able  city  of  Italy.  It  was  celebrated  for  its  extravagance 
and  luxury.  In  the  heart  of  an  exceedingly  fertile  re¬ 
gion,  its  indolent  patrician  inhabitants  had  usurped  the 
ager  publicus  which  during  the  happier  days  of  the  gol¬ 
den  age  of  Rome  had  been  farmed  by  labor  unions  or 
colleges  under  the  celebrated  provisions  of  Numa  Pom- 
pilius  and  Solon.24  The  ager  publicus  was  the  public  land. 
It  was  property  in  common  which  belonged  to  the  State.28 
The  Licinian  Law,  or  the  memory  of  the  defunct  statute 
having  this  title,  was  at  that  moment  a  bone  of  conten¬ 
tion.  Spurius  Cassius  long  before  the  Twelve  Tables  were 
engraved  or  the  decemvirate  created,  had  made  a  strong 
effort  in  behalf  of  the  unions,  or  order  of  the  united  la- 

22  See  International  Encyclopaedia :  La  Rousse,  Dictionaire  Univcrsel,  Articles, 
*'  Spartacus;  ”  Schambach,  Italische  Sklavenauf stand.  V.  15.  “  Dass  Spartacus  von 
Geburt  ein  Thraker  gewesen,  darin  stimmen  alle  Naehrichten  iiberein.”  Con¬ 
sult  also  Floras,  ELI,  20;  Appian,  I.  116-121.  Orosius,  HUtoriarum,  Adversus  Pag- 
anos,  VII. 

.’3  Plutarch,  Crassus,  8. 

24  Digest,  lib.  xlvii.  tit.  22,  leg.  4,  and  the  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  there 
spoken  of  by  Plut.,  Numa,  xviii. 

25  See  Licinian  law  and  the  Agrarian  conflicts,  Plut.,  Titus  Gracchus.  Also 
the  Encyclopaedias,  Art.  Agrarian  Law 


286 


SPAKTACU8 L 


borers,  one  of  the  great  branches  of  that  labor  organiza 
tion  indirectly  provided  for  by  Nima.  The  co-operators 
or  amalgamated  societies  for  victualing  the  inhabitants  of 
Rome  were  necessary  to  the  life  of  the  state.28  Their 
business  had  been  to  attend  to  the  farming  of  the  ager 
publicus  or  lands  belonging  to  the  state.  It  is  an  unhappy 
characteristic  of  individual  wealth,  however,  to  love  the 
boasted  social  gulf  separating  them  from  labor;  and  as 
certain  individuals  grew  enormously  rich  and  politically 
powerful  they  committed  encroachments  upon  the  ancient 
system  of  supplying  the  people  with  provisions  as  it  w  ere, 
by  communistic  means.  The  trade  unionists  or  socialists 
were  gradually  encroached  upon  by  these  wealthy  gentes, 
or  patricians  who  pushed  slaves  out  upon  the  ager  pub- 
licrn,  driving  off  the  unionists  and  their  system  by  slow 
degrees,  substituting  for  them  abject  and  degraded  toil, 
and  maddening  the  collegia  or  unions  who  took  advantage 
of  their  organizations  to  discuss  this  grievance,  a  political 
as  well  as  a  social  one.27  There  were  at  Rome  good  men 
as  well  as  bad  among  the  rulers  in  power.  At  all  times 
these  are  to  be  seen  in  Roman  history.  Spurius  Cassius, 
a  consul,  got  a  law  passed  restoring  these  lands,  which 
had  been  arbitrarily  taken  possession  of,  because  he  found 
that  the  wrong  had  already  begun,  in  his  early  time  to 
produce  poverty.  But  the  patricians  arrogantly  ignored 
the  measure,  or  rather  fought  it  down.  Great  estates 
manned  by  slaves  appeared  on  the  public  domain  to  which 
the  optimates  had  no  right  whatever,  except  that  of  su¬ 
perior  force,  prestige  and  tact.  Thus,  on  the  one  hand, 
in  many  places,  especially  in  the  particular  territory  south 

See  “  Vidualert”  In  chap,  xvi,  pp.  899-400.  Also  consult  Granier,  Hittoir* 
des  Classes  Ouvri'eret,  chap,  xii,  explaining  how  the  trade  unions  were  employed 
by  the  Roman  government. 

2T  In  addition  to  our  own  copious  figures  on  the  importation  of  slave — In 
other  words  cheap  labor,  we  quote  Schambach  as  follows;  “  Von  diesen  ruck- 
weisen  Ueberschwemmung  mit  frischen  Menschenki  aften  abgesehen,  wurde  der 
regelmaszige  Bedarf  auf  dem  Wege  des  Handels  gedeckt.  Tort  und  fort 
wurden  aus  dem  Norden,  aus  den  Gegenden  am  schwarzen  Meere,  aus  Syrien 
und  Libyen  eine  Menge  von  Sklaven  durch  Handler  nach  Italien  importirt. 
Lange  Zeit  war  Delos  der  Haupsitz  dieses  Handels;  zur  Zeit  der  hochsten 
Bliite  (um  100  v.  Chr.)  sollen  an  einem  Tageoft  10,000  Sklaven  hier  abgesetz  sein. 
Selbstverstandlich  war  auch  Rom  ein  wiclitiger  Platz  fiir  den  Sklavenhandel. 
Auf  welche  Weise  der  Handler  in  dem  besitz  seiner  Waare  gekommen,  darnach 
fragte  man  nicht;  Menschenraub  zu  Wasser  und  zu  Lande,  selbst  Menschenjag- 
den,  wie  sie  heutzutage  noch  in  Afrika  an  der  Tagesordnung  sind,  waren  uichts 
TJngewbhnliches,  wenn  such  die  grosze  Masse  gebrachten,  als  ein  Opfer  heimi- 
•cber  Feliden,  durch  Tausch  oder  Kau.  in  dem  Besitz  ihrer  derzeitigen  Herr*n 
gakoiumou  sein  muchteu.”  Der  Sklavenaiij'sLand,  S  8. 


IMPORTED  CHEAP  LABOR  THE  CAUSE 


287 


and  east  of  Rome,  of  which  Capua  was  a  fruitful  center, 
the  ancient  collegia  or  labor  organizations  were  gradually 
driven  together  into  cities,  and  the  slaves  of  conquest 
and  slaves  of  birth  from  the  gem  who  were  everywhere 
numerous,  were  forced  M  to  delve  for  rapacious  masters, 
without  remuneration,  under  the  tyrannical  lash  of  foreign 
mercenary  drivers.” 

The  same  state  of  things  continued  until  the  time  of 
Appius  Claudius,  one  of  the  Roman  decemvirs,  whose 
business  as  a  decemvir  was,  per  se  to  carry  out  the  law  of 
Cassius,  restoring  the  public  domain  to  the  people.  What 
was  this  decemvirate  created  for  ?  History  is  exceedingly 
explicit  and  unanimous  in  stating  the  functions  of  the  de¬ 
cemvirate — decemviri  legibus  scribendis .*°  They  were  cre¬ 
ated  for  the  express  purpose  of  carrying  out  the  law  of 
the  Twelve  Tables,  one  special  provision  in  which  was  to 
encourage  the  organization  of  the  free  labor  element ; 
which  organization,  as  a  business  compact,  was  to  till  the 
ager  publicus  on  shares  and  furnish  the  people  food  and 
other  necessities  therefrom. 

Appius  Claudius  must,  especially  from  a  standpoint  of 
sociology,  ever  be  regarded  as  one  of  those  black  and 
morally  nauseating  buzzards  at  which  an  occasional 
glimpse  is  had  by  the  disgusted  sensibilities  of  the  vir¬ 
tuous  as  they  climb  down  the  ladder  of  time.  He  was, 
in  a  most  strangely  surreptitious  manner,  the  arch  enemy 
of  the  very  measure  he  was  elected  to  defend !  In  war, 
his  best  soldiers  the  mercenarii,  forsook  him.  In  morals, 
he  was  a  cruel  and  villainous  libertine  and  his  rape  of 
Virginia,*1  under  pretense  that  she  was  one  of  the  “  mis¬ 
erable  proletaries  ”  who  bore  the  taint  of  labor  and  that 
therefore,  the  laws  of  chivalry  and  of  common  decency 
did  not  reach  her  case,  together  with  the  terrible  death 
of  the  poor  girl  at  her  father’s  hand,  ended  in  bringing 
the  tryant  to  prison  and  a  violent  end.** 

*8  Consult  Strabo,  VI.  p.  260,  see  also  Ltlders’  Dionysische  KUnstter:  **  Der  von. 
den  Tarentinern  gegen  die  Rbmer  zu  Hiill'e  gerufene  Pyrrhus  hatte,  tun  den  ver- 
welchlichten  Burgern  anzuhelfen,  nichts  Eiligeies  zu  than  als  die  Syssiten  in 
zukunft  zu  verbieten,  (page  12).  Also  Schambach’s  Italischer  Sklavenattfatand,  VI, 
S.  17. 

29  For  accounts  of  the  enormous  slave  populations  of  different  erae,  see 
Schambach,  Italischer  Sklavenaufstand,  1, 1-4.  Biicher,  A  ufstdnde  der  Unfreien  Ar - 
beitcr,  S.  26,  36,  65,  64.  Drum  aim.  Arbiter  und  CommunitUn,  S.  24, 166,  64  and 
our  own  chapters . 

so  Livy,  III.  33.  «  Livy,  m,  66,  56,  87.  Dlonys.  of  Harlicarn. 

**  Livy,  IAbri  Historiarvm,  HI.  57,  Et  illi  carcerem  sedifleatum  esse,  quod 


SPARTACUS. 


m 


The  inimical  inroads  upon  the  ager  publicus,  and  the 
consequent  ruin  of  the  common  people  instigated  by  Ap- 
pius  Claudius  and  his  band  of  patrician  adherents  created 
so  great  a  defection  among  the  plebeians  that  in  B.  C. 
366,  the  famous  Licinian  law,  de  modo  agri  was  called  into 
being  by  Stolo  a  low-born  himself.  It  was,  in  reality,  a 
regulation  instituting  a  system  of  small  holdings;  for  un¬ 
der  it  one  of  the  consuls  was  to  be  a  man  of  the  people 
and  no  one  rich  or  poor  could  be  allowed  more  than  500 
acres  of  the  public  land.  This  celebrated  law,  of  Licinius 
Stolo,  a  plebeian,  which  may  be  regarded  as  one  of  the 
primitive  causes  of  those  great  social  wars  and  agrarian 
contentions  such  as  brought  Rome  to  her  phenomenal  de¬ 
cline,  was  also  doomed  to  defeat.  By  the  time  of  the  re¬ 
volt  of  Spartacus  we  find,  on  every  side  of  the  metropolis, 
the  grandees  occupying  the  land,  living  in  luxury,  while 
the  land  which  for  many  centuries  had  been  cultivated 
by  the  comparatively  free  laborers  or  freedmen,  was  now 
laboriously  worked  by  degraded  slaves,  ready  to  revolt 
and  watching  their  opportunities  for  revenge. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  resume  the  thread  of  our  nar¬ 
rative.  Young  Spartacus,  a  workingman,  in  every  sense,** 
by  birth  from  an  earth-born  family,  by  accident  of  capture 
and  by  sale  as  a  slave,  was  assigned  to  the  exciting  and 
dangerous  labors  of  a  gladiator.  His  task  was  the  revolt¬ 
ing  one  of  amusing  the  non-laboring  grandees,  their  la¬ 
dies  and  fashionable  pets,  the  indolent  and  proud,  who 
languidly  sought  in  the  game,  the  wager,  the  bagnio,  the 
amphitheatre  and  its  bloody  combats,  a  gratification  of 
their  passion  for  these  scenes  of  ancient  life.  The  ruins  of 
the  great  marble-faced  amphitheatre  of  Capua  where  Spar- 
taous  is  supposed  to  have  killed  many  of  his  own  comrades 
in  misfortune,  are  still  an  object  of  attraction  to  travelers.*4 
Capua  was  at  that  time  a  large  city.  It  lay  on  the  Vol- 
turnus,  a  beautiful  river  of  Campania  flowing  from  the 
Samnian  Appenines  westward  into  the  Mediterranean 

lomlcillmm plebta  Romance  vocare alt  solitus.  Proinde,  ut  ille  iterum  ac  eaepiui 
provocet,  ale  se  Iterum  ac  Baepius  iudicem  illi  ferre,  ni  vindlcias  ab  libertate  in 
wnritutem  dederlt:  si  ad  iadic«m  non  eat,  pro  damnato  in  vinonla  duel  iubere. 
Dt  hand  qnoqnam  improbante  sic  magno  motu  animorum,  quum  tantl  yiri  gup. 
plicio  euamet  plebi  lam  nlmia  llbertas  videretur,  in  carcerem  est  coniectus,” 

43  Dr.  Schambach’s  effort  to  prove  him  to  have  had  a  recognised  family,  le 
without  foundation  in  fact. 

44  See  Binaldo,  Memoria  Intoriche  Della  Cilia  di  Capua. 


CAPVAN  SCHOOL  OF  GLADIATORS. 


through,  mountain  gorges,  valleys  and  plains,  watering 
some  of  the  most  fruitful  lands  of  that  magnificent  penin¬ 
sula.  These  delightful  and  fruitful  fields  had  been  the 
ager  publicus  since  363  years  before  Christ;  but  like  many 
of  the  vast  estates  of  the  republic,  had  by  the  time  of  our 
hero,  become  private  manorial  grounds  tilled  by  slaves. 

Spartacus  had  previously  had  some  military  experience 
of  a  low  order; 36  for  it  is  certain  that  he  was  a  prisoner, 
having  deserted  the  alliance  in  which  he  was  treated  as  a 
servant — a  humiliation  his  spirit  was  too  proud  to  bear — 
and  being  recaptured,  was  sold  into  slavery. 

There  was  at  Capua,  in  addition  to  the  amphitheatre, 
a  school,  probably  of  importance  enough  to  secure  for  its 
enterprising  proprietor,  Lentulus  Batiatus,  a  considera¬ 
ble  income.  Plutarch  expressly  states  that  most  of  the 
gladiators  were  Thracian  Gauls,  and  further  exonerates' 
Spartacus  from  having  come  to  this  fate,  by  any  crimes 
he  had  committed.86  He  was  forced  there  by  the  injus¬ 
tice  of  his  master.  It  seems  to  have  been  the  opinion  of 
Sir  Edward  Bulwer  Lytton,  that  Roman  gladiators  were 
superior  to  the  Gaul  or  other  imported  contestants  at  the 
Pompeian,  and  of  course,  the  Capuan  amphitheatres ;  and 
we  are  to  infer  from  him  that  Roman  vigor  and  strength 
were  superior  to  all  other  even  at  the  metropolis  of  Rome. 
But  we  must  ever  bear  in  mind  that  this  Roman  blood 
was  native;  that  although  it  was  servile  by  heredity  through 
long  generations  from  plebeian  parentage  as  the  element 
of  outcasts,  yet  it  was  actually  Roman  blood;  while  the 
Thracian  element  was  actually  of  Greek  blood,  and  that 
in  consequence  a  gladiatorial  fight  between  a  Thracian 
Greek  and  a  Roman  stirred  up  the  Roman  spirit  of  emu¬ 
lation  on  grounds  of  national  pride ;  since  they  fancied 

86  “  n  avait  servi  dans  les  16gions  comme  auxiliaire,  mais  trop  Her  pour  ac¬ 
cepter  une  servitude  <36guis6e  sous  le  nom  d’alliance,  il  avait  dSserte  ala  tSte  d’ 
une  troupe  de  ses  conpatriots ,  mais  repris  et  vendu  son  courage  et  sa  force 
6taient  employ6s  en  quality  de  gladiateur.”  La  Kousse,  Didionnaire  Universel. 

8*  Plutarch,  Marcus  Crassus ,  8;  “AeVruAov  tivos  Baridrov  novoixaxov s  ir 
Kairvjj  t pe<f>ovTO<;,  <Lv  oi  7roAAoi  TaAdrai  /cat  ©pa/ ce?  J)<rav.”  Florus  Annales,  III.  20: 

. “  quippe  cum  servi  militaverint,  gladiatores  imperaverint,  illi  inflmcB 

sortis  homines,  hi  pessimro.  auxere  ludibrio  calamitatem."  So  also  Schambach, 
Italische  Sklavenauf stand.  VI,  S.  18-19,  who  puts  the  proportion  one  third  Thraci¬ 
ans  and  two-thirds  Gauls  in  the  armies  of  Spartacus ;  “  Zum  Oberaniiihrer  wahl- 
ten  sie  jetzt  den  Thraker  Spartacus,  zu  Unteranliihrern  die  beiden  Gallier  Crixus 
und  (Enomaus.  Mit  grosser  Wahrscheinlichkeit  diirfen  wir  aus  diesen  Wahlen 
in  Bezug  auf  die  Zusammensetzung  des  Haufens  den  Schlnss  ziehfen.  das  etwa 
ein-drittel  Thraker  zwei-drittel  Galliern  gegeniiberstanden,  ein  Verhaltnis,  wel¬ 
ches  sich  auch  in  weiteren  Verlauf  der  Ereignisse  uicht  wesentlich  andert,” 


290 


SPARTACUS. 


tliey  beheld  in  the  bloody  duel  a  recapitulation  of  the 
more  serious  conflicts  with  Pyrrhus  or  Mithridates.  We 
know  that  on  occasions  of  the  games  at  the  amphitheatres, 
when  Romans  were  to  meet  Gauls  or  Greeks,  the  adver¬ 
tisements  were  more  pronounced  and  the  betting  ran 
ruinously  high  among  the  rich  frequenters  of  the  ring. 
Undoubtedly  Spartacus,  who  spoke  Greek  and  Latin  with 
facility,  was  aware  of  this.  B  e  had,  as  a  scholar  under 
Lentulus  Batiatus,  either  in  the  open  functions  or  at  re¬ 
hearsals,  severely  punished,  by  his  giant  muscular  force 
and  mastership  of  the  art  of  swordsmanship  and  pugilism, 
many  wretches  whose  lot  like  his  own  was  to  measure 
strength  and  science  alike  with  friend  and  foe. 

But  although  of  prodigious  courage,  aptness  and  phys¬ 
ical  energy,  Spartacus  was  humane  and  generous;  and 
bis  nature  revolted  against  the  hideous  character  of  his 
employment.  He  loved  the  memory  of  his  native  hills 
and  valleys.  His  central  desire  was  to  reach  home  and 
spend  in  quiet  the  remainder  of  his  eventful  life.  Be¬ 
sides,  his  wife,  also  a  Thracian  Greek,  was  ever  at  his  side 
with  her  loving  tones  of  encouragement.  Plutarch  says 
that  she  was  possessed  of  the  gift  of  divination.  He  relates 
that  Spartacus  when  taken  prisoner  was  first  brought  to 
Rome  to  be  sold.  While  there,  a  serpent  was  once,  as 
he  slumbered,  discovered  twinning  caressingly  about  his 
head  and  locks  ;  whereupon  on  inquiry  by  superstitious 
people,  as  to  the  import  of  this  strange  action  of  the 
gods,  she  answered  in  her  public  capacity  as  retainer  to 
the  orgies  of  Bacchus,  that  this  conduct  of  the  friendly 
reptile  betokened  that  her  husband  would  rise  to  be  great 
and  formidable,  and  die  happy!  81  Unfortunately  for  the 
Romans  he  rose  to  be  formidable  to  say  the  least. 

87  Plutarch,  Marcus  Crassus ,  8;  “It  is  said  when  he  was  first  brought  to  Borne 
to  he  sold,  a  serpent  was  seen  twisted  aboxit  his  face  as  he  slept.  His  wife,  who 
svas  of  the  same  tribe,  having  the  gift  of  divination,  and  being  a  retainer  beside* 
to  the  orgies  of  Bacchus,  said,  it  was  a  sign  that  he  would  rise  to  something 
eery  great  and  formidable,  the  result  of  which  would  be  happy.  This  woman 
still  lived  with  him,  and  was  the  companion  of  his  flight.’’  According  to  Taci¬ 
tus,  however,  she  was  a  German;  for  in  his  Germanifc,  a  curious  chapter  occurs 
in  her  praise  setting  her  forth  as  an  example  of  the  heroism  of  the  ancient  Ger¬ 
man  women.  We  qu  ote  the  excellent  statement  of  Scham* 

bach  on  this  point;  Italische  Sktavenaufstand,  V,  S.  16;  “Was  des  Spartacus 
friihero  Lebenssehicksale  anlangt,  so  steht  fest,  dass  er  eine  Zeit  lang  unter  den 
Hilfstruppen  im  romischen  Solde  gestanden  hat,  vielleicht  in  dem  Heere  des 
Proconsul  P.  Claudius,  der  die  noch  freien  Stamme  dfer  makedonisehen  Thrakei 
unter werfeu  sollte.  Hier  hat  er  sich  wahrscheinlich  jene  genaue  Keuntniss  dos 
rduuschen  Herrwesens  erworben,  welche  die  uaerliissliche  Vorbediugung  zi) 


THE  CAPUAN  UBUTCHER-MA  STER." 


291 


But  whatever  the  vicissitudes  of  Spartaeus  at  Rome,  it 
is  certainly  at  Capua,  many  miles  from  the  eternal  city, 
that  we  must  introduce  him.  He  must  have  been  sent  to 
the  Capuan  school  of  gladiators  to  be  trained  in  the 
science  of  those  ferocious  combats  with  an  object  of  being 
sent  back  to  Rome  prepared  ad  gladium  or  ad  ludum ,38 
for  the  amphitheatre  which  afterwards,  at  the  Coliseum 
became  the  scenes  of  brutalities  and  abominations,  such 
as  the  world  has  seldom  witnessed.  Neither  are  we  pre¬ 
pared  to  state  whether  Batiatus  the  lanista  or  “  butcher- 
master”  of  Capua,  was  to  prepare  him  for  the  full- armor 
games  of  the  hoplomachi  or  for  the  deadly  Thracian  dag¬ 
ger  duels  M  to  promote  the  pleasure  of  gentlemen.”  89  But 
for  whatever  exact  purpose  he  was  designed  at  the  arena 
they  were  doomed  to  disappointment. 

At  Capua  there  was  at  that  moment  an  organization  of 
the  unguentarii 40  who  furnished,  it  is  said,  all  Italy  with 
perfumes  of  the  richest  quality  and  who  in  carrying  on 
this  trade  under  the  rules  of  their  collegium  or  labor  union 
realized,  so  long  as  the  ancient  law  applied  in  their  case, 
a  good  living  as  wage  earners.  Considering  the  amount 

seinen  zukiiftigen  Siegen  war.  Nach  Fionas  ist  er  sodann  desertirta.  Strassen* 
rauber  geworden,  als  soldier  get'angen  und  unter  die  Gladiatoren  verurtheilt. 
Mit  dieser  Ueberlieferung  stiramte  indessen  Appian  I,  116,  e/c  Se  aixjaaAwo-ta?  xa t 
7rpa(jea)s  iv  to??  /xoyo/j.dxois  cov  nicht  iiberein,  und  auch  ein  Fragment  Varro’s  bei 
Charis.  I,p.  108,  Innocente  Varro  de  rebus  nrbanis  tertio,  Spartaco  innocente 
conjecto  ad  gladium  spricbt.  gegen  Florus.  Dass  er  mebrmals  seinen  Herrn  ge- 
wechselt,  ehe  er  in  des  Cn.  Lentulus  Batiatus  Fechterschule  nacb  Capua  kam, 
sohcint  aus  Pint.  Crass.  8;  6t€  npOjTov  ei?  'Puj/atji'  oinos  vx^7!  bervorzugelien.  Plu¬ 
tarch  erzahlt  auch  noch  die  Sage,  dass  nach  seiner  Ankunft  in  Bom  sich  eine 
fichlange  im  Scblaf  um  sein  Haupt  gewunden  und  dass  eine  thrakische  Wahr- 
sagerin  dies  daliin  gedeutet  habe,  *  er  werde  gross  und  furchtbar  und  bis  an  sem 
ungiiicklicbes  Elide  gliicklich  sein,’  eine  Propliezeiung,  die  in  ihrem  letzten 
Theile  an  Allgemeinheit  nichts  zu  wiinschen  iibrig  lasst. 

ss  To  be  killed  by  decree  of  law,  or  to  be  saved  after  three  years  of  service, 
in  successful  competitive  lights.  Very  few  ad  ludum,  gladiators,  ever  came  out 
alive. 

3« Florus,  Annales,  HI,  20,  §8;  “Nee  abnuit,  ille  de  stipendario  Tliracae  miles, 
de  milite  desertor;  inde  latro,  dein  in  honore  virorum  gladiator.” 

40  Unguentarii-,  see  chapter  xix,  on  Trade  Unions,  Capua  is  also  the  seat  of  the 
curious  historical  inscription  of  Aquillius,  (Orelli,  Inscriptionum  Latinarum  Colleo 
tio,  No.  3,  308),  which  speaks  ol  the  917  runaway  slaves  restored  by  him  to  their 
masters,  during  the  great  Sicikm  Slave  war  (chap,  xi.,  Athenion),  which  could 
not  have  been  inscribed  more  than  about  17  years  before.  We  therefore  quote 
the  inscription  entire  as  it  furnishes  evidence  of  what  must  have  been  the  state 
of  feeling  with  working  people  at  the  time  the  war  with  Spartacus  broke  out  at 
Capua:  “  M  Aquillius,  M.  F.  Gailus.  procos  viam  fecei  ab  regio  ad  Capuam  et  in 
ea  via  Ponteis  omneis  meiliarios  tabelluriosque  poseiuei  hince  sunt  Nouceriam 
media  Captuam  XXCIII,  Muramxm  IXXI1I  coscntiaan  CXXI1I  Valentiam  CLXXX. 
ad  Fretum  ad  statuam  COXXXI  regium  CCXXXVII,  suma  Af  Capua  regium 
meihaCCCXXI.  Et  eidem  praetor  in  Sicilia  fngiteivos.  Italicorum  conquaesiuei 
redeiqnc  homines  DCCCCXVU  eidemque  primus  fecei.  Ut  de  agro  poblico  ara 
toribus  cederent  paastorea  forum  aedisqua  poblicas  heic  fecei." 


SPARTACUS 


292 


demand  for  such  an  article  in  the  most  extravagant 

and  luxurious  era  of  Roman  wealth,  we  must  infer  that 
the  business  employed  a  large  number  of  people.  But 
just  at  this  moment  the  senate  at  Rome  was  seriously 
contemplating  the  suppression  of  the  trade  unions.  We 
know  that  this  contemplated  suppression  was  desperately 
resisted  both  by  the  unions  and  some  of  the  tribunes  of 
the  people  and  other  men  of  power ;  and  if  we  are  to  sup¬ 
pose  that  the  men  were  as  keenly  on  the  alert  in  those 
days  as  they  now  are,  we  cannot  but  imagine  that  their 
influence  if  not  their  numbers,  were  lent  toward  kindling 
this  servile  war.  For  this  reason  if  for  no  other,  it  is 
highly  important  that  we  should  know  this  story. 

The  auspices  were  all  favorable  to  Spartacus  while  at 
Capua,  who,  together  with  200  of  the  Thracian,  Gallic  and 
Roman  gladiators,  plotted  a  measure  for  escape.  The 
plan  was  to  stealthily  secure  the  knives  and  other  arti¬ 
cles  to  be  found  in  the  kitchens  and  eating  rooms  of  the 
institution,  and  with  these,  make  a  rush  in  a  body  for  the 
principal  doorway  which  was  guarded  by  Roman  sol¬ 
diers.42  Just  before  the  appointed  moment  arrived,  how¬ 
ever,  a  certain  person  enrolled  in  the  conspiracy  let  his 
courage  forsake  him;  or  it  may  be,  was  bribed  by  secret 
detectives  to  reveal  the  truth.  However  this  may  have 
been,  a  dash  by  the  officers  of  the  law  was  suddenly  made 
for  the  arrest  of  the  insurrectionists,  which  would  have 
succeeded  had  not  Spartacus  put  his  utmost  efforts  forth 
to  prevent  it — being  actually  ahead  of  time.  As  it  was, 
78  of  the  most  trustworthy  and  daring  burst  through 
the  door  into  the  street  and  thence  out  of  town.  The  78 
men43  had  succeeded  in  providing  themselves  with  long 

41  Appian  Historia  Rowland.  f.  116;  ‘‘Toil  S‘  avrov  \p6vov  ntpi  ti)f  ’IraAiap 
lovopax^v  6?  t^eas  ev  Kcurvrj  rpeijyopeviDv,  2 7rapra/co;  ©p<*£  ai'ijPj  eaTparevpivot  nori 
Pwpaioif,  e/c  Se  at^p.aAwcrtas  xal  7rpacreco?  ev  rofs  povo po-xoti  in v,  eneiaev  avrutv  ef 
epSopyKOVTa  avSpag  padurra  KivSvvevcrai  nepl  eAevtfepi'as  paWov  rf  &eas  ejrtA*i£en>s, 
Kal  fiiacrdpevos,  <ri>v  avrois  root  <j)v\d.(TcrovTai  e^eSpape,  Kal  nvuv  oSomoptov  £vAoif 
reai  £i0iSioi?  ondurapevos  e?  to  Beaftiov  opos  aveijivyev.”  Plutarch,  Crassus,  8, 
(Langhorne,)  says..  “OneLentulus  Batiatus  kept  at  Capua  a  number  of  gladJ- 
tors,  the  greatest  part  of  which  were  Gauls  and  Thracians;  men  not  reduced  to 
that  employment  for  any  crimes  they  had  committed,  but  forced  upon  it  by  their 
master.  Two  hundred  of  them,  therefore,  agreed  to  make  their  escape.  Though 
the  plot  was  discovered,  threescore  andei  hteen  of  them,  by  their  extreme  vig¬ 
ilance,  were  beforehand  with  their  master,  and  sallied  out  or  town,  having  first 
seized  all  the  long  knives  and  spits  in  a  cook’s  shop.” 

42  Floras,  Annales,  III.  20 ,  puts  it  at  30:  “Cum  triginta  hand  amplius 
ejusdem  iortunaa  viris,  erumperunt  Capua.”  Plutarch  says  78;  and  this  best 
agrees  with  others. 


FIRST  BATTLE. 


293 


knives  and  any  other  things  they  could  lay  hands  on 
which  could  be  used  as  weapons.43 

The  first  battle  was  fought  with  the  troops  of  the  gar¬ 
rison  at  Capua,  and  if  we  are  to  credit  the  hints  of  Plu¬ 
tarch  the  confiict  must  be  considered  both  the  opening 
battle  and  victory  of  Spartacus.  The  Capuan  troops,  af¬ 
ter  the  escape  of  the  seventy -four,  attacked  them,  as  they 
gained  the  gates  and  passages  into  the  open  road ;  but 
by  some  dexterous  charge  were  defeated  by  the  gladia¬ 
tors  and  compelled  to  return  empty-handed  to  the  gar¬ 
rison.  They  took  the  main  road,  presumably  the  Appian 
Way,  which,  leading  from  Rome  through  the  city  of 
Capua,  joins  the  Via  Aquilia  about  five  miles  to  the  south 
of  this  place.  The  Via  Aquilia,  parting  from  the  Appian 
Way  to  the  right,  leads  almost  directly  to  the  foot  of 
Mount  Vesuvius,  a  distance  from  Capua  of  nineteen  or 
twenty  miles.  It  was  on  this  march  that  the  fugitives  met 
some  wagons  loaded  with  a  quantity  of  daggers,  swords 
and  knives  which  they  were  taking  to  the  city.  These 
weapons  were  to  be  used  by  gladiators  in  the  arena;  and 
it  is  not  unlikely  that  they  were  intended  for  these  fugi¬ 
tives’  own  use  at  the  Capuan  amphitheatre.  Implements 
so  much  needed  were,  of  course,  instantly  seized,  though 
not  without  a  fight.  Thus  equipped  they  reached  a 
mountain  ledge  in  safety.  On  personal  inspection  of  the 
place  we  are  inclined  to  conjecture  that  Spartacus  and 
his  friends  first  reached  the  northeasterly  base  of  Vesu¬ 
vius,  or  that  part  which  is  now  the  fragment  of  the  volcano 44 
and  known  as  the  “  Somma,”  whose  separate  peak  five 
miles  eastward  from  the  crater  is  called  the  “Punta  del 
Nasone”  and  is  nearly  4,000  feet  above  the  sea  which  is 
visible  to  the  westward.  At  that  time,  before  the  erup¬ 
tion,  it  must  have  been  5,000  or  6,000  feet  high. 

*3  Plutarch,  Marcus  Crassus,  9,  in  relating  these  things  speaks  very  bitterly 
against  them,  as  being  mere  barbarians:  “  Kai  jrpwroj'  pev  roi>s  e/c  Kavvy/s  eA 6ov~ 
ras  uxjdfxevoi,  /cat  ttoAAwi'  ottKiov  e7riAa/3op.evot  7roAep.icrr>7piio»',  aaptrot,  ravra.  p.ere- 
Aa.p./3ai'oi\  anoppi^ai'ies,  ws  artp-a  kcu  jSapjSapa,  Ta  rdtv  /j-ovoixa-x^v.”  Florus  and 
Cicero  put  the  number  of  the  first  gladiators  down  as  low  as  possible  :  “  Cum 
Spartaco  minus  multi  prima  fuerunt.  Quid  tandem  isti  mali  in  tarn  tenera  in- 
Bula  non  fecissent  ?  Cicero,  AdAtticum,  Liber  VI.  Epistola,  2.  Florus,  Annates, 
HI.  20,  §.  1,  declares  there  were  scarcely  more  than  30  who  escaped  with  Sparta¬ 
cus:  “  Spartacus,  Crixus,  iEnomaus,  effracto  Lentuli  ludo,  cum  triginta  baud 
amplius  ejusdem  l'ortun®  viris  eruperunt  Capua.”  Consult  also  Frontin,  LXXIV. 
1,  5,  21;  Yellejus  Paterculus,  II,  30,  6. 

Vesuvius  was  not  known  to  have  ever  had  an  eruption  at  that  time.  Ap. 
piau,  HLstoria  Humana,  1. 116,  only  says ;  “  ev  to  BiarfiLoi/  opos  dve<f>vyey.”  Plutarch 


294 


SPAMTACUS. 


Here  the  fugitives  took  refuge  among  the  crags  and 
wild  vines  that  overhung  the  mountain  side.  It  was  at  a 
point  where  there  was  but  one  approach,  that  they  fixed 
their  first  resting  place.  This  was  a  projecting  table-rock 
which  shelved  forward  over  a  craggy  precipice  embowered 
in  the  foliage  of  wild  grape  vines.46  Here,  on  a  crag  ris¬ 
ing  perpendicularly  over  an  immense  chasm,  the  little 
band  pitched  their  tents.  They  held  a  council  of  war  and 
elected  Spartacus  commander-in-chief  and  Crixus  and 
CEnomaus,46  his  lieutenants.  Spartacus,  now  in  full  com¬ 
mand,  immediately  began  to  exercise  those  gifts  of  genius, 
foresight  and  power  which  have  covered  one  of  the  most 
brilliant  military  pages  in  the  history  of  either  ancient  or 
modern  times.41 

As  might  be  expected,  the  people  of  Capua  were  filled 
with  terror  at  the  escape  of  the  gladiators.48  There  was 
a  feeling  of  shame  and  humiliation  based  upon  the  fact 
that  the  rebels  were  slaves.  To  combat  with  equals  had 
ever  been  the  pride  of  Rome;  but  to  bring  her  noble  arms 
to  bear  against  a  thing  so  low  and  hateful  in  the  scale  of 
being  as  a  servile  revolt  was,  from  a  social  point  of  view,  a 
national  degradation  and  a  disgrace. 

Nevertheless,  the  report  reached  Rome  that  the  gladia¬ 
tors  under  Spartacus,  the  prophetic  giant,  had  revolted 
and  escaped  to  the  mountains,  and  a  large  detachment  of 
troops,  who  wrere  probably  stationed  at  Capua,  was  sent 

who  must  have  borrowed  from  Sallust  (See  Schambach,  8.  9),  is  our  principal 
source  for  these  details 

46  La  Rousse,  Dictionnalre  Universd,  Art.  Sparlacut, see  also  Plutarch,  liarcut 
Crassus,  VIII.,  IX. 

<0  Flor.,  m,  20,  §.  1.  “  Spartacus,  Crixus,  (Enomsus,  effracto  Lentuli  ludo, 

cum  triginta  baud  amplius  ejusdem  fortunas  viria," 

47  Schambach,  Der  Ualische  SJclavenauf stand,  V ,  8.15:  “Plutarch  sagt  in» 
Leben  des  Crassus  cap.  8 :  oi  iroAAot  ’S.napTo.Kfiov  7roA«/u.o»>  bvopa^ovm  und  Floru*, 
der  die  sicilischen  S'klavenkriege  ‘bellum  servile’  nennt,  setzt  uber  das  matt- 
zlgste  Capital  desdritten  Buclies  die  Ueberscimft  ‘  bellum  Spartactum.'  bringt  den 
Italischen  Shlavenkrieg  also  in  eine  Katagorie  mit  den  andern  gross'n  Kriegen 
(wie  dem  b Hum  Hanuibalicum,  Sertorianum  Mithridaticum),  in  deneu  eia 
Mann  so  vorwiegeud  als  die  Seele  des  Kamies  erscheint,  dass  dieser  nach  ihm 
benannt  zu  werden  verdieut.  Zwar  finden  wir  bei  den  rbmischen  Antoren  vor- 
wiegend  andere  Bezeichnungen,  z.  B.  bellum  servile  (Augustin  de  c  d.  Ill,  25, 
Ampel  c.  41,  45),  servilis  tumultus  (Caes.  b.  G.  I,  40),  bellum  fugitivorura 
(Front),  ‘  hoc  fugitivormn  et  ut  verius  dieain  gladiatorum  helium  ’  (thus.);  a  her 
alien  diesen  Benennungen  liegt  die  Absicht  zu  Grunde,  den  verbassten  Fttbrer 
der  Aufstiindischen  nicht  wider  Willen  zu  Nachruhni  zu  verhelien." 

48  In  further  proof  that  originally  the  paUrfamiliat  had  the  right  to  enslaw 
or  even  kill  his  children,  see  Canon  Lightfoot,  on  The  Collossiant%  p.  3 1 2,  quoting 
the  Digest,  i.  6.  “In  potestate  sunt  servi  domiiiorum  :  quae  quidem  potestM 
juris  gentium  est:  uam  apud  oaines  peraeque  gentes  animadvertar*  pottutuo# 
dcmimia  m  servos  vitae  necisque  potestatem  iuisstj.’' 


SECOND  BATTLE. 


295 


oat  under  the  command  of  the  Roman  preetor,  Clodius 
Glaber,  to  subduo  them  19  One  account  gives  the  number 
of  this  force  at  just  3,000  men.  Olodius  appeared  at  the 
base  of  the  precipice  during  the  day,  knowing  that  the 
rebels  were  on  the  height  above  him.  The  army,  how¬ 
ever,  took  up  its  quarters  at  one  side  of  the  acclivity  tc 
the  ascent  of  which  there  was  but  one  approach.  This 
they  guarded  to  prevent  the  gladiators  from  escape  in  the 
night. 

Now  was  the  time  for  the  wily  Spartacus,  whose  band 
was  without  suitable  arms  for  a  contest.  The  duel  was 
to  consist  in  the  measure  of  comparative  wit.  When 
evening  came  Spartacus  and  his  men  who  during  the  day 
had  taken  vines  and  of  them  woven  ladders  sufficiently 
strong  to  hold  the  heaviest  man  and  long  enough  to  reach 
the  foot  of  the  overhanging  precipice  back  of  whose  cap¬ 
stone  the  band  lay  intrenched,  let  themselves  down  in 
such  silence  as  not  to  awaken  the  suspicion  of  the  slum¬ 
bering  army.  All  descended  the  ladder  empty-handed 
in  this  manner,  except  one  man  who  remained  to  lower 
the  arms;  after  which  he  also  climbed  down  and  thus  all 
succeeded  uninjured,  in  reaching  the  plain  below,  at  a 
point  least  suspected  by  the  Romans,60  Profound  silence 
reigned.  The  proud  praetor  and  his  3,000  men  were  now 
but  a  few  steps  from  where  stood  those  desperate  slaves 
who  wrell  knew  that  one  slip  or  false  action  might  end 
their  lives. 

Spartacus,  ranged  his  men  in  a  manner  to  surround 
the  Roman  encampment.  When  all  was  ready  the  start¬ 
ling  whoop  of  onset  was  given  and  the  gladiators  centering 
in,  apparently  in  large  numbers,  with  their  terrifying  war- 
cry  and  death-dealing  weapons,  completely  routed  those 
whom  they  did  not  kill  upon  the  spot.  The  rout  of  the 
Romans  was  complete  and  the  rebels  remained  masters 
of  their  baggage  and  arms,  74  Roman  cohorts  being  killed 
on  the  spot.51 

Compare  Florins,  III.  20,  4.  “  Clodio  Glabro,  per  fauces  moutis  vitigineas.” 
See  Scliambach,  Itnlisd-er  Sk'a uenouj stand,  VJ.  S.  19.  Also  International  Encyc. 
Art  Spartacus,  Livy,  Epitome,  XCV.,  gives  the  name  of  the  Roman  legate  as 
Claudius  l  uleher.”  Appian  says  Variuivis  Glabrus,  1. 116.  .  .  “/cal  n-pwros 
avroi'  eKirep<f>deis  ’Ovapuaos  rAa;3po<r.”  Rut  he  gives  us  very  little  of  this  first 
strategical  manoeuvre  and  battle,  and  payees  on  to  the  greater  conflicts  which 
followed, 

5"  Plutarch,  Marcus  Orassus.  8;  Frontinus.  I.  o,  22. 

m  iivatiuus,  I.  3,  21.  “Oohurtes  gladiatoribus  qualuor  et  lieptuagiuta  ces- 


SP ART  AC  US. 


The  result  of  this  second  success  was  electrifying.  On 
the  part  of  the  Romans,  public  sentiment  was  filled  with 
humiliation  and  disgust.  Arrangements  were  immedi¬ 
ately  made  at  Rome  to  send  a  powerful  force,  under  a 
leader  in  whom  they  had  confidence ;  and  Publius  Varinius, 
a  praetor,  wTas  sent  south  at  the  command  of  a  large  body 
of  troops  ably  sujiported  by  two  lieutenants,  Furius  and 
Cossinius.  The  praetor  had  so  much  faith  in  Cossinius 
that  he  made  him  his  assistant  and  chief  counselor. 

Spartacus,  who  had  gained  this  decisive  victory  at  the 
precipice  of  Vesuvius,  was  cool  and  calm,  full  of  the  sense 
of  his  responsibility  and  still  unwavering  in  the  child-like 
desire  to  reach  safely  his  native  home,  far  to  the  north¬ 
ward,  across  the  Adriatic.  He  had  the  ripe  judgment  to 
foreknow  that  the  Romans  when  aroused  were  invincible. 

But  resolutely  suiting  the  opportunity  to  the  circum¬ 
stances,  he  issued  a  proclamation  of  emancipation  and  pro¬ 
tection  to  all  the  slaves  who  should  join  his  force.  Mul¬ 
titudes  of  cattle-drivers,  shepherds,  herdsmen  and  others 
whose  condition  had  been  degraded  by  the  land -holders 
to  slavery,  ajipeared  before  him  offering  their  allegi¬ 
ance.  They  were  accepted  and  armed  with  implements 
wrested  from  Clodius,  at  the  ambuscade  of  Vesuvius. 
The  entire  force  under  Clodius  Glaber,  being  only  given 
at  3,000  there  could  not  have  been  arms  enough  for  more 
than  that  number,  unless  some  of  the  volunteers  furnished 
their  own  weapons.  This  might  have  been  the  case;  but 
to  offset  the  argument  that  the  servile  auxiliaries  used 
other  than  the  dignified  military  armor,  we  have  a  passage 
in  Plutarch,  declaring  that  at  the  first  skirmish  against  a 
detachment  from  Capua  where  the  gladiators  were  victor¬ 
ious  they  threw  away  their  knives  as  things  ‘‘disgraceful, 
dishonorable  and  barbarous.” 

His  wish  was  constantly  to  secure  arms,  and  naturally; 
for  immediately  on  the  defeat  of  Clodius  Glaber,  the  ren¬ 
egade  force  of  78  gladiators  from  Capua  swelled  into  an 

uorint See  also  Flor.,  m.  20:  *•  Nihil  tale  opinantls  duels,  snbitoimpetu  ea*- 

tra  rapuere.”  Scliambach,  Jtalischer  Sklaverikritg,  S.  20,  says:  “  Alle  Nachrich- 
tcu  stimtuen  nemlich  darin  tiberein,  dasa  die  Feehter  an  Zahl  unendlich  viel  go- 
ringer  waren,  Frontin  1,  5,  21  gibt  sogar  an,  es  seien  noch  die  74  allein  gewesen: 
verum  etiam  ex  alio  latere  Clodium  ita  terruit,  ut  aliquot  coliortes  gladiatoribus 
quatuor  et  septuaginta  cesserint.  Der  Angriff  gelang  vollstandig,  die  rbmischen 
‘  unlites  tumultuarii  ’  raumten  iiiehend  das  Feld  und  liessen  ihr  Lager  mit  aliens 
Gepaek  im  Sticli,  das  erne  Iieute  der  Empover  wurde.” 


THIRD  AND  FOURTH  BATTLER 


29Y 


army  of  10,000  w  men  of  great  vigor  and  very  swift  run¬ 
ners.”  and  Spartaeus  “  covered  them  with  armor,  some 
heavy,  some  light  for  picket  duty,” M  As  the  cities  of 
Herculaneum  and  Pompeii  were  but  a  few  miles  distant 
to  the  south  and  west,  it  is  quite  possible  that  he  realized 
not  only  arms  but  many  volunteers  from  that  quarter. 
The  indomitable  rebel  now  set  himself  about  drilling  his 
men  into  military  service.  The  wretched  ergastuli  were 
changed  into  free  men  who  assumed  military  dignity,63 
from  the  moment  of  their  desertion  from  their  masters  thus 
realizing  immediate  participation,  without  having  to  linger 
upon  the  anticipations  of  promise.  With  1 0,000  desperate 
soldiers  under  rigid  drill  he  soon  felt  himself  capable  to 
oope  with  a  praetorian  army.  Nor  had  he  long  to  wait. 

The  Roman  praetor,  Publius  Varinius,  as  already  stated, 
was  in  the  same  year,  B.  C.  74,  sent  with  a  large  army  to 
put  an  end  to  the  trouble.44  He  had  two  lieutenants, 
Furius  and  Cossinius.  Varinius  placed  much  confidence 
la  Cossinius  as  a  man  of  uncommon  judgment.  But  the 
combined  wisdom  of  both  was  not  enough  to  induce  the 
Roman  army  to  keep  together;  for  Furius  was  sent  with 
a  strong  detachment  of  2,000  men  against  the  “  common 
robber.”  “  Spartaeus,  perceiving  the  Roman  army  divided 
into  two  columns,  fell  upon  the  weakest  line,  that  of  Fu- 

••Plntarch,  Marcus  Crassus  ;  Floras,  III.  20,  3,  also  speaks  of  the  10,000  as  fol¬ 
low*:  “  Servisque  ad  vexillum  yocatis,  cum  etatim  decern  amplius  millia  cois- 
•ent  horuinum.”  Plutarch,  Marcus  Crassus,  correctly  applies  this  estimate  after 
father  than  before  the  battle  of  the  ambuscade. 

68  Smith’s  DicHonairy  of  Greek  and  Roman  Antiquities ,  Art.  Spartaeus,  The 
runaways  resorted  to  all  sorts  of  expedients  to  obtain  arms  and  munitions.  See 
Floras,  III.  20,  6.  “  Afliueutibus  in  diem  copiis,  quurn  jam  esset  justus  exercitns 
e  yimlnibus  pecndumque  tegumentis,  ineonditos  sibi  clipeos;  e  !erro  ex’gastulo- 
rum  recocto  gladxoe  ac  tela  fecerunt.”  So  also  Appian,  De  Beilis  Civilibus,  I. 
116-117:  **  M*rd  Se  tovto  Siraprasio  per  en  paWov  woAAoi  a vre&eov,  sai  (irra  pvpia- 

Jjaar  ijA if  oTparov ,  sat  07rAa  e\a\ xtve,  cat  vapacrKivtfv  <rvve\eyt»,  ot  S’  ev  dare t 
TOVf  vwarovt  i£en tpnov  pera  Svo  reAwv." 

M  Appian,  Be  Beilis  Civilibus ,  I.  116.  “  Mept£op«i'w  i’  avTp  ra  x4pSr)  tear 
Ivopoipiav  ra^v  tta jjdos  J\v  arSpuv,  sat  nploTOf  in’  avrbv  esirept^deU  ’Ovapii'ios  rA a/3- 
pov,  ini  i’  imirtp  IidtrAto?  ’OvaAe'pto?,  ou  jroAtrtsrjv  arpanav  ayovres  6 AA  ocrou?  iv 
«r» sal  nap66tf>  <rvre\t(av  (ou  yap  nut  'Potpaloi  n6\epor,  dAAJ  eniSpoprji'  riva  sai 
t6  ipycr  opotor  rjyovrro  elvai),  <rvp/3a\6vTes  t/ttoIh'to.  'Ovapinov  Se  sai  rbv 
avrds  Sirdprasos  nepeai ratre"  napa  tooovtov  JjAde  kivSvvov  ‘F<upaiu>v  6  arpa- 
ryyfct  awr*t  aixpakurrot  bird  povopavov  yevladai.” 

•*  Horace,  Carnino,  liber  III.  Carmen.  14,  lines  18-20] 

“  Et  cadern  Marsi  memorem  c’.uelli, 

Bpartacum  ei  qua  potuit  yagaiitam 
Fallere  testa.” 

Cornelias  Tacitas,  Annates ,  lib.  III.  cap.  73,  speaks  of  the  successes  of  Spartaeus 

as  shameful  applying  the  epithets  “robber and  deserter.”  “Non  alias  magis 
sua  populiqae  Romani  contumelia  indoluisse  Caesarem  ferunt,  quam  quod  de- 
sertor  et  praedo  hostium  more  ageret.  ne  Spartaco  quidern  post  tot  consularium 
•Xercituum  clades  inultam  ]  tali  am  urenti.” 


298 


SFAliTACUS. 


rius,  and  with  an  impetous  dash,  broke  through  his  main 
body,  routing  and  destroying  nearly  the  entire  detach¬ 
ment.  The  larger  force  however  remained,  commanded 
by  Cossinius,  the  legate  and  confidential  adviser  of  the 
commander-in-chief.  That  worthy,  doubtless,  incredulous 
regarding  the  abilities  of  the  man  he  was  to  cope  with,  so 
far  forgot  the  rigorous  vigilance  of  war  as  to  indulge  in 
the  tempting  baths  of  Salenae.  The  eagle-eye  of  Sparta- 
cus  bent  upon  the  prey.  While  the  Roman  was  thus 
luxuriating,  the  gladiators  rushed  with  fierce  rapidity  and 
like  a  thunderbolt  struck  the  spot,  and  very  nearly  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  seizing  Cossinus  in  the  bath.  Lie  escaped,  how¬ 
ever,  with  precipitation,  but  his  arm}7  was  attacked  by 
surprise,  routed,  large  numbers  killed  and  Cossinus  him¬ 
self  in  attempting  to  restore  order  was  slain  in  battle 
which  covered  the  field  with  the  dead.  The  conquering 
legions  followed  up  the  victory  and  made  themselves  mas¬ 
ters  of  the  camps  of  the  Roman  army. 

The  report  of  this  victory  at  the  Baths  of  Saleme  spread 
like  wildfire  through  the  land.  Slaves  rushed  into  the 
camp  of  the  rebels,  offering  then  services  in  exchange 
for  freedom.  The  newly  gotten  arms  were  transferred 
from  the  Romans  to  the  sun-baked  and  brawny  hands  of 
the  rebels.  The  drill  and  military  manoeuvre  went  rigor¬ 
ously  and  with  great  system  forward  in  their  camp;  and 
while  the  hopes  of  the  unsophisticated  bondmen  beat 
high  the  pride  of  the  Roman  nobility  and  citizens  was 
mortified  and  crushed. 

Varinius66  with  the  remnant  of  his  army,  consisting  of 
the  greater  fraction  of  the  original  force,  was  in  the  vicin¬ 
ity,  or  at  least,  not  very  far  from  the  scene  of  the  last  dis¬ 
aster  in  which  Cossinius  met  his  fate.  There  are  no  data 
extant  which  give  the  full  accounts  of  this  encounter.  To 
the  student  of  sociology  it  must  Le  announced  with  keen 
regrets  that  the  entire  three  books  of  Livy  covering  the 
space  of  time  between  74  and  71  B.  C.,  are,  with  the  ex¬ 
ception  of  the  epitome  of  books,  XCY.,  XCVI.  and 
XCVIL,  completely  lost.  A  discovery  of  the  lost  author¬ 
ities  would  indeed  be  a  rich  legacy  to  the  science  of  so¬ 
ciology.  Exactly  similar  is  the  fate  of  the  great  7. /AW  Ills'- 

60  Publius  Varimus  according  to  l'lutarou,  aitiiougii  xppiaa  says  Varimos 
tflabros. 


FIFTH  BATTLE.  VARINIUS  DEFEATED. 


20!)  - 


loriarum,  of  Sallust.81  Of  all  writers  on  ancient  history, 
Sallust  and  Livy  rank  among  the  most  plain-spoken  and 
manly.  By  the  epitomies  and  fragments  still  extant  we 
know  that  these  missing  histories  of  the  servile  war  ware 
elaborately  written;  and  judging  from  the  careful  study 
and  insertion  of  figures,  speeches  and  other  literary  con¬ 
diments  which  spice  their  narrations  we  should,  had  they 
not  perished,  be  supplied  with  a  flood  of  new  details  re¬ 
garding  this  servile  war.  Those  inestimable  jewels  are, 
however,  lost,  unless  some  Niebuhr  arises  to  rescue  them 
from  their  dusty  shadows.  The  triumphs  of  Spartacus 
were  an  unendurable  stigma  upon  the  Roman  name,  and 
the  shame  which  the  successes  of  gladiators  and  slaves 
inflicted,  though  it  could  not  be  effaced  from  memory, 
could  be  expunged  or  obliterated  by  destroying  the  books 
and  by  acts  as  barbarous  as  that  which  afterwards  lined 
the  drives  for  miles  both  sides  of  the  Appian  Way  with 
the  crucified  followers  of  this  general. 

Spartacus  soon  after  made  a  formidable  onset  upon 
Varinius,  who  was  overthrown,  showing  this  to  have  been 
a  great  battle.  Much  obscurity  hangs  over  this  engage¬ 
ment.68  Could  the  whole  truth  be  revealed  we  should 
perhaps  be  presented  with  one  of  the  world’s  bloodiest 
struggles;  for  we  are  informed  by  Plutarch  that  about 
this  time  the  army  of  Spartacus  had  greatly  swollen,  and 
Appian  declares  it  to  have  reached  70,000  men.  The 
Roman  general  was  overthrown.  He  lost  all  his  troops, 
his  horses,  baggage,  and  his  praetorian  fasces.  In  fact  he 
was  annihilated;  for  we  hear  no  more  of  him. 


w  See  Schambacli’s  Ilalischer  Sklavcnauf stand.  II.  S.  6.  This  been  observer 
and  critic  considers  Sallust’s  history  to  have  been  far  the  most  authentic  and 
complete  of  all.  He  says:  "Am  meisten  zu  bedauern  haben  wir  den  V  erlust 
des  grossten  Werkes  des  Salustius,  welches  den  Titel  fiihrte  libri  historiarum 
populi  Romani.  Salustius  war  von  den  romischen  Autoren,  die  eine  ieschichte 
jenes  Krieges  gegeben  haben,  derjenige,  welclier  den  Ereiguissfen  selbst  nicht 
nur  zeitlich  am  niichsten  stand,  sondern  aucii  die  meiste  histonache  Glaubwur- 
digkeit  hat.  Vermoge  seiner  Stellung  im  Staate  und  seiner  weitreichendcu  Ver- 
bindungen  war  er  im  Stande  die  besten  Naohrichten  zu  geben,  undmit  einer  an- 
ziehenden  charakteristisclien  Darstelluug  verband  or  Mfctliode  und  Kritik.  Seine 
Historien  waren  sehr  ausfiihrlich.” 

“  Dans  un combat  desastreux  il  (Varinius) perdit  ses troupes,  ses  baggages, 
son  cheval,  et  jusqu’  aux  faiseeaux  pretoriena  ”  (La  Rousse,  Art,  Spartacus).  See 
also  Michaud,  Bibliographic  Universelle,  Vol.  40,  pp.  18-21,  wherein  we  are  re¬ 
minded  ol'  the  extraordinary  allusion  by  Tacitus  (Germaniae.  cap.  8),  of  the  wife 
of  Spartacus  having  been  a  fortune-teller.  She  accompanied  her  husband 
through  Ids  remarkable  career.  Her  name  was  Aurinia  and  Tacitus  supposes 
her  to  have  been  a  German,  bee  Infra,  ]  .  318  note  73  Appian,  ]  10,  Jin.,  con¬ 
firms  tbs  statement  that  Varinius  lost  many  of  his  troops  and  his  colors. 


800 


SPARTA  CUS. 


Spartacus  from  this  time  was  adoroed  with  the  regular 
accompaniments  of  a  Roman  pro-consul.  With  a  great 
army  he  overran  the  territory  of  Campania,  ravaging  and 
sacking  Nola,  Nuceria  and  Cora;  then  crossing  the  Sam- 
nian  line  into  the  province  of  Hirpinius  he  seized  what  he 
wanted  from  Compsa  on  the  Via  Numicia.  Crossing  the 
Appenines  he  marched  his  army  southward  into  the  rich 
peninsular  division  of  Lucania.  Here  in  the  great  fertile 
plains,  between  the  mountains  and  the  Tarantine  Gulf,  he 
was  absolute  master.  His  arms  extended  still  farther 
southward  over  the  domain  of  Bruttium  in  Magna  Grse- 
cia.59  In  fact  the  destruction  of  the  Varinian  army  had 
placed  the  rebels  in  complete  possession  of  this  whole 
portion  of  Italy.  Here  were  pitched  the  winter  quarters, 
B.  C.  74-73.60  " 

But  Spartacus  well  knew  that  he  must  not  follow  the 
voluptuous  plan61  of  Hannibal  who,  one  hundred  and  forty 
years  before  at  Capua,  among  the  same  valleys  of  which 
he  was  now  master,  and  after  the  strikingly  similar  bat¬ 
tle  of  Cannm,  had  allowed  his  Carthagenian  braves  to  be 
spoiled  by  luxury  and  wealth.  Fixing  his  quarters  at  or 
not  far  from  the  city  of  Metapontum,62  which  lay  on  the 
Tarantine  gulf  between  the  rivers  Acalandrus  and  Casu- 
entus,  where  the  alluvial  bottoms  filled  those  parts  of  Italy 
with  harvests  of  the  cereals  and  the  vine,  Spartacus  estab- 

69  Appian,  Historia  Romana,  I.  117,  Td  5’  opr)  ra  nepi  &ovpiov<>  **1 

rroXiv  avrri v  /caTe'Aa/3e,  /cat  \puabv  p.ev  ij  ipyvpov  roi’s  e’/utropous  ia<i>ipfw  c'ku/Av*,  xa\ 
KeKTTjadcn  rou?  eavrov,  p-6vo i>  Se  criSypov  /cal  \a\Kuu  ewfovno  noWov,  icai  rave 
i<r(t>epovTa.i  ovk  ySiKovv.  odev  adpoa?  i/Arjs  evtropyaau'Tt-'t  *£  napeoKe.va.crai'-ro,  tea. i 
dapiva  eiri  AerjAacrt'a?  ef-rjeoav.  'Pw,uatot?  re  na.\iv  <rvvtv«x&iv ret  *$  X'*?4*  e«pa* 
tow  /cat  Tore,  /cat  Aeta?  7roAA-»js  “ye'p.0 vtct)  kiravyecrav.'> 

6o  Schambaeh,  Italischer  Slclavenauf stand.  III,  S.  13,  makes  the  war  to  have 
commenced  in  the  summer  of  B.  C.  74,  which  we  follow,  Idem,  S.  20,  Sohatnbach 
draws  from  the  Vatican  fragments  of  Sallust  as  follows  ;  “  Nachdem  Spartacus 
alle  Elemente  der  empdrung,  welche  Campanien  darbot,  an  slch  gezogen  v.  andte 
er  sieh  in  anclere  gegcnden.  Leider  sind  wir  uber  die  lloute,  die  er  einschlug, 
niciit  genau  unterrichtet ;  doch  durien  wir  an  der  Hand  der  vatikaniselieii  Frag¬ 
ments  des  Salust  mit  denen  Orosius  iibereinstimmt,  aunehmen,  dass  er  sich  zu- 
nachst  quer  (lurch  die  Halbinsel  an  die  K  listen  des  adriatiechen  Meeres  wandte, 
von  wo  er  dann  die  Bichtungnach  Suden  einschlugund  u&ch  Lukanien  gelangte. 
Wenigstens  berechtigen  uns  die  Fragmente  dcs  Salust  zu  der  Annalime,  da«# 
Varinius,  von  dem  weitex’hin  die  Bede  aein  wird,  in  Piceuum  den  Aufstiimliscben 
gegenbber  gestanden  babe.  Auf  diesen  Marscbe  eroberten  sie  Annii  Forum  and 
vielleicbt  auch  Avellae,  dessen  Einwobnerscbaft  sich  ilinen  wenigstens  tnm 
Schutze  ibrer  Mark  entgegenstellte.  Bass  aucb  bier  die  Sklaven  ibren  Weg  mit 
Mord  und  Brand  bezeichnet  haben,  iet  wohl  gewiss.” 

Plutarch,  Marcus  Crassus,  9-10,  Smith's  Dictionary  of  Greek  and  Homan  Bio¬ 
graphy.  Art.  Spartacus,  Sallust,  Fragm.  Historiarum,  III,  <de/n,Gerlaeh  ed. ,  p.  254 
Pliny  Nat.  Hist,,  XXXIII.  14. 

Cf.  La  P.ousse,  Dictionnaire  Vviversel,  accoi’ding  to  which  the  camp  of 

6p,  x  tacus  was  near  Tbui’ium,  q,  v,  , 


SPARTACUS  AND  THE  COMMUNES. 


SOI 


fished  himself  for  the  winter,  astonishing  liis  historians 
by  an  ordeal  of  tactics  and  a  discretion  which  the  wisest 
and  most  virtuous  might  follow  at  the  present  day. 

As  explained  in  our  account  of  the  Roman  collegia  or 
social  organizations,  all  Italy  was  at  this  period  covered 
with  social  societies  of  protection,  of  resistance  and  for 
convivial  and  burial  purposes.63  To  make  coincidence 
more  striking  to  the  student  of  sociology,  it  may  be  ex¬ 
plained  that  it  was  at  just  this  critical  moment  that  the 
Roman  politicians  who  for  centuries  had  been  invidiously 
watching  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  social  movement 
rrnder  the  law  of  Numa  Pompilius,  were  busily  discussing 
a  measure  for  the  wholesale  suppression  of  the  great  so¬ 
cial  movement,  root  and  branch.  This  law  for  their  sup¬ 
pression  did  not  succeed,  on  account  of  the  powerful  in¬ 
terference  of  the  tribune  Clodius,  until  the  year  58  B.  0. 
But  we  are  not  without  evidence  that  everywhere  the 
unions  of  labor  were  all  this  time  on  the  alert,  expecting 
the  calamity  and  preparing  for  revolt.  These  unions  were 
innumerable.64  Italy  and  Greece  were  honeycombed  with 
them.66  Another  proof 66  that  this  remarkable  conquest 
of  Spartacus  in  the  industrial  centers  of  Italy  actually 
revived  the  organizations  or  turned  their  membership  to 
his  use,  is  seen  from  a  slur  in  Cicero,  the  bitter  hater  of 
everybody  who  was  too  poor  to  live  without  manual  toil. 
Speaking  of  them  he  says:  ....  “  not  only  those  ancient 
labor  unions  have  had  their  right  of  organization  restored 
to  them,  but,  by  one  gladiator,  innumerable  others,  and 
new  ones,  have  been  instituted.”  These  words  from  such 
high  authority,  shed  a  blaze  of  light  upon  our  conjecture 
that  Spartacus  was  working  in  collusion  with  the  disaf¬ 
fected  labor  unions  wrkich  had  either  been  suppressed  or 
their  existence  threatened,  as  is  plainly  proved,  at  that 
time.67  Thus  Cicero  becomes  our  most  valuable  and  re- 

63  Cf.  chaps  xiii,  to  xix.,  Infra,  on  Trade  and  other  labor  organizations  among 

the  ancients. 

64  Cicero  who  was  incensed  at  the  enccess  of  Clodius  whose  eloquence  re¬ 
stored  the  right  of  organization  to  the  workingmen,  says:  ‘‘Collegia  non  ea  so¬ 
lum  quae  senatus  sustulerat  restituta,  sed  innumerabilia  quaedam  nova  ex  omul 
Itece  Urbis  ac  servitio  concitata.”  Cic.  In  Pisonem,  4, 9. 

65  “  L.  Julio  C.  Mario  Coss,  quos  et  ipsi  Cicero  memoravit  SCto  collegia  sub- 
lata  cunt,"  Ct.  Mommsen,  De  Collegiis  el  Sodaliciis  Romano-rum,  p.  73. 

60  Cic..  Pro  Sesto ,  25,  55.  “  Ut  collegia  non  modo  ilia  vetera  restiturentur  sed 
ab  uno  giadiatore  innumerabilia  allia  nova  constituerenter.”  This  inimitable 
satire,  was,  in  all  probability  hung  at  Spartacus  who  had  then  been  dead  only  a 
few  years. 


f 


SP  ART  AC  US. 


liable  historian  by  his  utterances  at  the  bar,  in  the  senate 
and  his  epistles.  We  must  make  the  importance  of  this 
matter  excuse  prolixity  and  repetition.  Speaking  of  these 
very  times  but  apparently  not  suspecting  the  extraordi¬ 
nary  concatenation  of  circumstances  which  we  use  in  evi- 

%j 

dence  of  our  conjecture,  the  great  archaeologist  Momm¬ 
sen,  explicitly  states,  concerning  the  ancient  conspiracy 
laws  of  this  period  which  we  conjecture  contributed  much 
to  the  so-called  servile  wars,  that  they  were  of  two  sorts. 
“  Thus  I  have  two  points  to  note  here:  In  the  first,  I  do 
not  think  that  the  Clodian  trade  unions  contained  slaves 
as  members ;  for  I  think  the  pure  trade  organization  of 
skilled  workmen  did  not  admit  slaves.  They  were  socie¬ 
ties  for  religious  purposes.68  Then  the  law  of  Clodius 
must  be  looked  upon  as  touching  only  the  city  of  Rome; 
as  Cicero  says:  ‘ex  urbis  faece * — out  of  the  slums  of  the 
city  of  Rome.  It  was  of  such  that  Clodius  would  con- 
scribe  and  classify.  The  fact  is,  innumerable  unions  of 
the  servile  race,  as  their  relics  show,  were  scattered  over 
all  Italy,  derived  from  ancient  times,  under  the  protection 
of  the  provincial  cities.”69 

We  are  told  that  the  young  general  after  fixing  his 
quarters  snugly  for  the  winter,  instituted  a  rigorous  drill 
of  his  troops.  According  to  Pliny  he  denied  them  the 
use  of  gold  and  silver  lest  they  should  become  demoral¬ 
ized  by  handling  these  vitiating  treasures.70 

One  thing  is  certain  during  his  sojourn  in  Lucania:  he 
set  all  the  slaves  free  and  declared  such  work  to  be  his 
mission.71  He  also  garrisoned  the  cities,  although  it  is 
claimed  that  some  of  them  he  plundered.  He  committed 
no  acts  of  brutality.  He  forced  his  soldiers  to  abstain 
from  intemperance.7*  He  was  humane  to  his  prisoners. 

w  See  Ascon,  L.  C’.,  speaking  of  Clodius;  "  De  collegilsrestituendisnovisque 
Institnendis  qure  ait  ex  servitiorura  faece  eonstituta.” 

88  Here  Mommsen  is  mistaken,  and  he  later  on  admits  that  they  used  relig¬ 
ion  as  a  cloak  to  screen  them  from  the  rigid  laws. 

09  Mommsen ,  De  Collegiis  et  Sol aliciis  Romanorum,  pp.  77-78.  The  text  is  as 
follows :  “Qua  ratione  conscriptio  instituta  sit  et  ad  quaenam  collegia  haec  lex 
maxime  pertinuerit,  iam  exposui.  Itaque  duo  tantum  habeo  adbuc  adnotanda; 
primum  cum  servi  in  collegiis  Clodianis  essent,  non  esse  cogitandum  de  collegiis 
opiflcum,  quae  servos  admisisse  non  arbitror,  sed  de  sacris  tantum;  deinde 
Clodii  legem  ad  Urbem  tantum  spectavisse,  cum  Cicero  cellegia  et  ex  urbis  faece 
eonstituta  dicat  et  Cloclium  in  foro  conseripeisse  et  decuriavPse.” 

<o  “  Quibus  deliciie  veneunt  tam  aurea  quam  aurata,  cum  st  iamns  interdixiss* 
castriB  suis  Spartacuni,  ne  quis  aui  um  haberet  aut  argentum.  Tantofoit  plus 
animi  fugitivis  nostris  ”  Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.  XXXIII.  14. 

71  Cf.  International  Encyclopaedia^  Art.  Spartacus. 


FAITHFUL  WIFE  OF  SP  ART  AC  US.  SOS 


For  once  we  have  a  record  of  a  skillful  soldier,  a  loving 
husband,  a  humble  workingman  and  a  gentleman. 

We  are  in  possession  of  several  very  reliable  evidences 
that  Spartacus  was  married  and  that  his  wife  shared  his 
prison  and  military  life.  Plutarch  is  our  authority  for 
the  first  and  Cornelius  Tacitus  for  the  latter.  Not  only 
was  she  faithful  to  him  but  she  certainly  became  a  cele¬ 
brated  pattern  of  fidelity,  making  herself  by  deeds  of  a 
true  heroine,  an  object  of  praise  to  so  great  an  extent 
that  Tacitus  holds  her  up  as  an  example  of  the  heroic 
character  of  German  women.  Her  name  was  Varinia.1* 
“  The  most  terrible  guerilla  chieftain  recorded  in  history 
was  unstained  by  the  vices  of  his  conquerors.”  74 

Spartacus  had  among  his  men,  a  large  number  of 
skilled  workmen  who  belonged  to  unions.  Among  them 
were  members  of  the  Fabricenses ,76  armor  makers ;  of  the 
Castrensiariiy  sutlers  who  took  contracts  under  the  old 
rule  of  Numa  to  supply  the  soldiers  with  provisions ;  fabri , 
workers  in  hard  metals ;  caligularii ,  soldiers’  boot  makers 
or  army  cobblers  and  many  other  mechanics  whom  he  en¬ 
gaged  and  employed  in  the  manufacture  of  arms  and 
other  details  of  supplying  his  army.  There  was  the  great 
order  of  the  VectigalariV 8  which  had  been  created  by 
Numa,  upheld  by  the  Twelve  Tables,  and  for  600  years 
employed  by  the  Roman  government  and  all  the  Muni- 
cipia  of  Italy  as  collectors  of  the  revenues  from  the  in¬ 
comes  of  the  public  domain,  but  which  had  lost  their  em¬ 
ployment  through  the  usurpation  of  the  ager  publicm  by 
land  monopolists  and  their  system  of  slave  labor. 

72  Plutarch,  Marcus  Crasstis,  (Langhorne,)  says:  "  Bat  they  (meaning  the  ob¬ 
stinate  slaves  against  the  orders  of  Spartacus)  relying  upon  their  numbers,  and 
elated  with  success,  would  not  listen  to  his  proposal.  Instead  of  that,  they  laid 
Italy  waste  as  they  traversed  It.*’ 

78  Tacitns,  Germanice,  8.  “Memoriae  proditur  quasdam  acles  inclinatas  iam 
et  labantes  a  feminis  restitutas  constantia  precum  et  objectu  pectorum  et  mon- 
strata  comminus  captivitate,  qnam  longe  impatientius  feminarum  6uarnm  nomine 
timent,  adeo  ut  eflicacius  obligentur  animi  civitatum,  quibus  'nter  obsides  puel- 
lae  quoque  nobiles  imperantur  inesse  quin  etiam  sanctum  aliquid  et  providum 
putant,  nec  aut  consilla  earr.m  aspernantur  aut  responsa  neglegunt.  vidimus  sub 
aivo  Vespasiano  Veledam  diu  apud  plerosque  numiuis  loco  habitam.  sed  et  olim 
Auriniam  et  compluris  alias  vonerati  sunt,  non  adulatione,  neque  tamquam 
racerent  deas  ’’  It  is  said  that  this  “Aurinia  ’’  was  the  wife  of  Spartacus. 

7 Smith’s  Dictionary  of  Hainan  Biography,  Art,  Spartacus. 

76  Orell.,  Inscriptioncm  Lalinarum  Colledio,  Nos.  4.079,  4,083,  and  infra  Arm 
o rers,  chapter  XV.  pp.  872-88,  Trade  unions.  There  are  many  inscriptions  show 
ing  that  the  blacksmiths,  armorers  and  other  iron  and  metal  workers  existed  ai 
that  time  in  lower  Italy,  under  the  collegia  or  trade  organizations. 

78  Orell.,  Inscr,  Lat  Colledio,  Vol.  11.  of  Collegia,  Corpora,  Sodalicia  et  cet,  pp. 

24tt  Also  index,  Vol.  III. 


904 


SPARTACUS. 


These  he  furnished  -with,  work  and  wages,  by  sending 
them  en  revanche ,  to  collect  from  the  rich  who  had  usurped 
the  lands,  the  provisions  and  money  for  his  army  and  its 
expenses.  Thus  Spartacus,  in  the  granary  of  Italy  be¬ 
came  the  master  workman  of  all  the  secret  unions  of 
trades  and  laborers;  and  we  have  no  evidence  disprov¬ 
ing  the  immense  popularity  to  which  he  unquestionably 
arose  among  the  wage  earners. 

The  army  by  this  time,  which  must  have  been  the  early 
spring  of  B.  0.  73,  was  swollen  to  120,000 77  men,  armed 
and  well  equipped,  in  readiness  to  battle  with  the  mighti¬ 
est  force  Borne  could  muster.  With  this  splendid  force 
he  now  meditated  a  daring  attempt  on  Rome. 

But  one  great  misfortune  now  began  insidiously  to  ex¬ 
hibit  itself.  His  army,  especially  that  division  of  the 
Gauls  under  Crixus,  his  hitherto  faithful  lieutenant,  began 
to  show  signs  of  jealousy.  Of  all  the  fratricidal  passions 
that  curse  and  wither  the  hopes  and  career  of  the  organ¬ 
izations  of  labor,  jealousy  is  the  most  venomous  and 
deadly.  Born  of  the  human  spirit,  it  runs  in  lurid  juices 
as  of  the  cobra’s  fangs,  and  strikes  death  under  cover  of 
fascination.  With  the  adder’s  blindness  it  envenoms  the 
atmosphere  by  puffs,  mistaken  for  zephyrs  and  balm,  and 
to  the  innocent  like  Spartacus  it  throttles  the  spirit  with 
the  dark  moral  shadows  of  doom. 

Had  this  insidious  spectre  not  appeared,  the  army  of 
the  gladiators  and  workingmen  might  perhaps  have  suc¬ 
ceeded,  to  some  extent,  in  a  desperate  march  on  Rome 
and  thereby — although  its  conquest  was  out  of  the  ques¬ 
tion — some  wise  negotiation  might  have  succeeded  in 
much  permanent  good  to  the  proletaries.  But  the  exact 
opposite  was  in  the  end  the  result.  The  plan  of  this 
campaign  was  not  carried  out. 

The  camp  at  Metapontum  was  constantly  visited  by 

n  Cf.  Smith’s  Dictionary  of  Roman  Biography ,  Art.  Spartacus ;  Schambacb,  Dtr 
Italische  Sklavenaufstand.  Appian  makes  it  to  have  beenl20,000:  avid  Spartacus 
•eriously  contemplated  an  invasion  of  Home,  he  says,  cap.  117,  lib.  I:  “O  Si 
SirapraKOf  rpiaKoariovf  ’Ptvp.auov  at^/maAoiTOVS  ivayiaaq  Kpi£(i>,  Siodexa  ju.vpid.cn 
»e£(Lv  if  ’Paijur)!'  ij»r«i'yeTo,  rd  a^pijara  tOjv  <r«evwv  /rara/cavaas  Kai  tov?  ai^j uaAujrovf 
ndrraf  di'eAcdv  k ai  «jri<r</>d£a$  Ta  inro^vyia,  iva  KOv<t>ot  tit]"  avro/uoAcov  re  7roAAa>i> 
ai’Ttf  npoaiorruv  ovSira  rrpocrifTO.  Kai  tu>v  vj rdrwv  ovrov  avdi$  ;repi  rqu  TUKyviTida 
v»i!<  vjroo-rdvTcvv,  fieyaf  ayiov  erepof  oSe  ylyvtrai,  Kai  fieyahr/  Kai  Tore  r\<rcra  ’Pwjuatwv.’* 

This  was  after  the  battle  of  Garganoa  and  the  death  of  Crixus.  See  infra.  So 
Julius  Obsequena,  vide  Lycostbens,  De  Prodigiis,  118:  “Armorum  borrendoclam- 
ore"’  (from  Capua)  “ centum  ruillia  homlnum  conaumpta  Itallco  civilique  belle 

reiato  est.” 


MODESTY  OF  HIS  AMBITIONS. 


305 


merchants  who  purchased  brass  and  iron  and  other  goods 
on  a  large  scale.  We  are  told  that  it  presented  the  spec¬ 
tacle  of  a  great  fair. 

Spring  came  and  it  was  learned  that  three  const^ar 
armies,  fully  equipped,  were  on  their  way  to  meet  the 
forces  of  the  rebels ;  and  Spartacus  took  up  his  line  of 
march  northward,  keeping  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic. 
The  object  of  this  movement  was  to  reach  the  Alps,  cross 
them  and  disperse  the  army  at  the  point  where  the  Gauls 
might  return  in  safety  to  their  homes  to  the  northward 
and  the  Thracians  might  take  to  the  right  and  thus  reach 
their  homes  in  Thrace.18  It  appears  that  Crixus  and 
CEnomans  had  remained  with  Spartacus  at  the  winter 
quarters  but  that  there  was  a  quarrel.  The  evidences 

78  No  writer  disagrees  from  the  main  statement  that  the  central  and  longing 
idea  of  Spartacus  was  to  reach  his  native  home  and  again  enjoy  the  occupations 
of  peace  Plutarch,  Marcus  Crassus,  9,  says  :  “Dy  this  time  he  (Spartacus)  was 
become  great  and  formidable.  Nevertheless  his  views  were  moderate.  He  had  too 
much  understanding  to  hope  the  conquest  of  the  Romans,  and  therefore  led  his 
army  to  the  Alps,  with  an  intention  to  cross  them,  and  then  dismiss  his  troops, 
that  they  might  retire  to  their  respective  countries,  some  to  Thrace  and  some  to 
Gaul,”  Granier,  next  to  Florus  and  the  English  Encyclopaedists,  the  most  mer¬ 
ciless  of  the  commentators,  says :  Histoire  ties  Classes  Ouvri'eres  et  des  Classes  Bour¬ 
geoises:  "  Spartacus,  qui  6tait  un  homme  doni  le  cceur  valait  mieux  que  la  condi¬ 
tion,  n’avait  au’une  id6e;  il  voulait  qu’on  franchit  les  Alpes,  qu’on  gagnat  les 
Gaules,  et  qu’ane  fois  la,  chacun  reprit  le  chemin  de  son  pays.  La  strategie  des 
consuls  et  la  mutinerie  de  ses  compagnons  l’empbcherent  de  rSaliser  sen  projet. 
Schambach  defends  Spartacus  against  the  generally  accepted  libels  and  sland¬ 
ers  afloat  in  Rome  and  which  acted  as  a  palliative  subduing  the  galling  fact  that 
the  haughty  nation  was  humbled  by  a  low-lived  gladiator:  “  Halt  es  doch  Florus 
fiir  nothig  sich  mit  den  Worten  ‘maguitudo  cladium  facit,  nt  meminerimus  ’  zu 
entschuldigen,  ala  er  den  Namen  des  Anfiihrers  in  einem  der  sicilischen  Auf- 
fitiinde  anfuhrt!  Aber  mit  der  ansicht,  den  Mann  einfach  todt  zu  schweigen, 
begniigte  man  sich  nicht ;  man  beheckte  sein  Andenken  durch  erfundene  Ver- 
brechen  und  machte  seinen  Namen  zu  einem  Schimpfworte,  und  selbst  Manner 
wie  Cicero  and  der  altere  Plinius  habeu  sich  von  den  stimmen  des  grossen  Hauf- 
ens  hierln  nicht  zu  emanciniren  vermocht.  Uns,  die  wir  keinen  Grund  haben, 
Spartacus  als  grimmigen  Feind  zu  verabscheuen,  lkgt  die  Verpflichtung  ob, 
eeine  Person  in  das  richtige  Licht  zu  stellen  und  gegen  unverdienten  Tadel  zu 
vertheidigen,”  ( Schambacn,  Der  Italische  Sklavenauf stand,  S.  15,  Dr,  Drumann 
in  Vol.  IV.  S.  74,  gq,  of  his  great  History  of  Rome  (Romische  Oeschichte)  gives 
Spartacus  this  just  tribute :  “DieNatur  hatte  lhn  zum  Helden  und  Ilerrscher 
geschaffen,  durch  klugheit,  Muth  Freiheitsiiebe  und  Massigung  ragte  er  uber 
seine  Gefahrten  hervor;  er  braebte  das  allmachtige  Rom  zum  Zittern  als  er  die 
Ketten  zerbrach.  und  besjehrte  auch  jetzt  nichts,  als  i'rei  zu  sein  ;  die  Grausam- 
keiten  seiner  zugelloseu  Schaaren  kommen  nicht  auf  seine  Rechnung,  sofern  sie 
nicht  gegen  die  Unterdriicker  gerichtet  wnren:  nur  gegen  die  Rotner,  in  den  n 
Spielen  or  sich  und  die  Menscliheit  entehrt  fiihlte,  die  ihm  nicht  einmal  die 
Flucht  gestatteten,  ihn  und  die  Uebrigen  einzufangen  suchten,  um  sie  an  das 
Krenz  zu  nageln,  kannte  er  kein  Erba  men.  Auch  auf  einer  Hohe,  wo  Alies  um 
ihn  her  den  Schwindel  befiel,  blieb  er  besonnen  ;  er  wollte  Rom  nicht  zerstbren, 
weil  er  nichts  Unmbgliches  wollte;  die  Vorhersagungen  seiner  thrakischen  Gattin 
Uber  die  ihm  beschiedene  Grosse  verblendeten  ihn  nicht;  aber  die  Sklaven  ver- 
wirrten  und  vereitelten  seinen  Plan  ”  '1  he  inquisitive  student  of  Spartacus  maj 
al  o  consult  a  fragment  of  Varro,  Charis.  I.  p.  108:  “Spartaco  innocente  con 
jecto  ad  gladinm.”  American  Encyclopaedia,  Vol.  XIV.  p.  8.19.  acknowledges 
that:  “  iiis  own  desire  was  to  secure  riie  freedom  of  the  slaves  by  taking  them 
bejond  the  Alps ;  but  they,  eager  for  plunder,  refused  to  leave  Italy.’’ 


SP ART AC  US. 


3QG 

also  tend  to  prove  that  Crixus  and  a  large  detachment  of 
the  Gauls  separated  from  the  main  army  on  the  march 
northward.  CEnomans  also  had  a  falling  out;  for  it 
seems  he  undertook  an  expedition  to  the  westward  of  the 
main  army  under  Spartacus  on  the  march  through  Pice- 
num  near  the  Adriatic  Sea.  This  expedition  of  CEnomaus 
was  undertaken  contrary  to  the  wishes  of  Spartacus  and 
to  gratify  a  desire  for  plunder.  This  lieutenant  was  met 
by  Gellius  19  commanding  one  of  the  three  consular  arm¬ 
ies  sent  out  by  the  Romans,  and  in  the  battle  which  fol¬ 
lowed,  he  was  killed,  his  army  routed  and  those  soldiers 
who  escaped  were  glad  to  get  safely  back  to  their  general- 
in-chief  who  never  ventured  a  battle  without  knowing 
beforehand  that  he  had  some  chances  in  his  favor. 

But  Crixus  who  was  weak  enough  to  be  jealous  in  such 
a  dangerous  emergency  was  too  weak  to  be  victorious 
over  the  Bomans.  He  rashly  ventured  a  battle  at  the 
foot  of  Mount  Garganus  in  Picenum,  with  his  large  de¬ 
tachment  of  the  army,  amounting  to  35,000  men.80  It  is 
likely  that  he  was  drawn  into  an  ambuscade  by  Arrius 
who  commanded  the  third  consular  army  of  the  Romans. 
Crixus  in  his  speech  to  the  soldiers  before  the  battle 
braced  his  men  with  assurance  that  it  was  “  better  to  die 
manfully  in  the  attempt  of  freedom  than  to  be  butchered 

7»  Orosius,  Historiarum  Adversus  Paganos  Libri,V.  “CEnomaus  enim  jam 
euperiore  bello  fuerat  occisus.”  Schambach,  Itcilischer  Sklavenauf stand,  S.  19, 
acknowledges  the  obscurity  in  which  the  facts  regarding  this  lieutenant  of  Spar¬ 
tacus  are  enveloped :  “  Jener  CEnomaus  muss  bald  gefauen  sein :  Crixus,  der  ala 
der  erste  nach  Spartacus  erscheint,  spielte  seine  Rolle  lunger.” 

so  Livy,  Liber,  XCVI.  Epitome,  gives  the  number  destroyed  at  20,000  includ¬ 
ing  Crixus  “Q.  Arrius,  praetor  Crixura  fugitivorum  ducem  cum  viginti  niili- 
bus  hominum  cecidit.”  Appian,  Historia  Romana,  117,  init.  "  Kai  tovtiov  virb 
pev  darepov  Kpi£og,  riyov  pevog  Tpiap-vpiutv  avbpibv,  irepi  to  Fapyavov  opog  rjTTaTOf 
Kai  bvo  pepr)  rou  arparov  Kai  avr'og  avvambkeTO  aureus*  2irapra/coi'  be  bid  rur 
'An evvivoiv  bpcov  eiri  ra  'AAjreia  Kai  eg  KeArous  ano  rwv  ’AKireiuiv  eireiyop-evov  6  irepog 
iinarog  npobafObv  Aue  rijs  <f>v yrjg,  Kai  6  erepog  ebioiKeu.  6  be  e(j>'  eKdrepov  avTwr 
eniarpe^ogevog  i rapa  gepog  eviKa.  Kai  ot  juev  < ruv  dopvfiio  to  ajro  rovbe  vtt e^wpouv’' 

Sallust,  Frag,  Historiarum.  We  quote  the  following  fragment  to  snow  the  des¬ 
perate  fighting  of  the  slaves  presumbly  at  this  battle  with  Crixus--' *  ingre,  tante 
setui  debacchoratur,  nefandum  in  modum  perverso  vulnere  et  interdum  lacerum 
corpus  semianimum  omittentes,  alii  in  tecta  jaciebant  ignes,  multique  ex  loco 
eervi,  quos  ingenium  soeios  debat,  abdita  a  dominis  aut  lpsos  trahebant  ex  oc- 
culto,  neque  sanctum  aut  nefandum  quicquam  fuit  irse  burbarorum  ac  servili 
ingenio;  qute  Spartacu*  nequiens  prohibere,  multis  precibus  cum  oraret ,  celeri- 
tate  nuntios.”  In  thejiext  fragment  we  see  the  plans  of  Spartacus  thwarted  and 
Crixus  on  the  eve  of  his  overthrow  and  death:  Aliquot  dies  contra  morem  fidu* 
cia  augeri  nostris  caepit,  et  »  romi  lingua.  Qua  Varinius  contra  spectatam  rem 
mcaute  motus  novos  inccgnitosque  et  aliorum  casibus  percussos  indite*  jam, 
neque  tarn  magnifice  fumeutes  prgelium,  qaam  postulaverant.  Atque  illi  certa- 
miui  conscii  inter  se  juxta  seditionem  erant.  Crixo  et  gentis  ejusdem  Gallis  at 
que  Germania  obviam  ire  et  ultro  ofi’erre  pugnam  cupientibus  contra  Sparta* 

Ulll  ’•  • 


BATTLE  OF  GARQANXJS.  DEATH  OF  CM  XUS.  *07 


for  a  Roman  holiday."  The  unfortunate  Crixus,  less  dis¬ 
creet  than  intrepid  rushed  into  the  din  of  strife  and  in  a 
furious  battle  which  occupied  the  day  was  slain  and  his 
army  defeated  with  great  loss. 

The  routed  soldiers,  however,  had  one  comfort.  They 
could  go  back  to  their  general  better  qualified  through 
the  lesson,  with  confidence  in  their  sagacious  chieftain 
whom  they  had  deserted.  Even  this  rebuke  did  not  en¬ 
tirely  quell  the  terribly  revolutionary  character  of  his  in¬ 
subordinate  troops. 

Spartacus  now  started  over  the  Appennines  in  forced 
marches  northward  toward  the  river  Ro,  dogged  every 
inch  of  the  route  by  the  large  consular  armies  of  Rome 
under  C.  Cornelius  Lentuius  and  Gellius  Poplicola,  the 
two  consuls  and  Q.  Arrius  the  praetor,  who  commanded 
the  third  consular  army.  But  he  sustained  no  losses. 
Every  time  the  enemy  ventured  a  battle  he  was  sure  to 
be  hacked  and  punished  by  the  terrible  columns  of  the 
now  veteran  proletaries.81 

Spartacus  appears  to  have  bent  every  energy  toward 
making  a  permanent  escape  from  Itah'.  In  the  struggle 
to  make  headway,  the  sallies  of  the  enemy  in  flank  and 
rear  were  always  met  by  the  wary  gladiator  with  a  shock 
which  stupefied  and  annihilated  them ;  and  in  this  man¬ 
ner  he  contested  every  attack,  watching  with  a  judicious 
eye  every  movement  of  the  several  Roman  armies,  for  op¬ 
portunities  to  inflict  the  heaviest  blows. 

At  last,  in  one  of  his  wily  manoeuvres  he  succeeded  in 
alluring  Poplicola  and  his  large  army  into  a  place  suita¬ 
ble,  as  he  believed,  to  make  a  general  attack.  We  are  a 
little  undecided  as  to  where  this  bloody  battle  took  place. 
There  are  data  to  the  effect  that  Spartacus  now  had  70- 
000  men  in  solid  column.82  But  most  of  the  great  histor¬ 
ies  being  lost,  the  lesser  writers  of  those  times  perhaps 

81  Flor.,  III.  20, 10.  “Inde  jam  consulates  quoque  aggresstis,  in  Appenino 
Lentuli  exercitum  percecidit:  apud  Mutinam  Caii  <  assii  castra  delevit.” 

82  It  is  probable  that  the  rebel  loice  was  still  stronger  than  this ;  for  Appian 
puts  it  at  120,000  while  yet  in  Thuria,  Vallejus  Paterculus,  however,  seems  to 
carry  the  idea  that  it  was  less :  “  quorum  numerus  in  tantum  adolevit  utque  ul¬ 
timo  dimicavcrc  acie  XL  millia  hom ilium  ee  Romano  exercitui  opposuerint.” 
But  his  scholiast  edition  finds  fault  with  these  figures,  as  absurd  and  refers  to 
Eutropiue  who  says  60  UOO.  Orosius  and  Livy,  who  make  the  rebel  force  about 
this  time  to  have  been  a  medium  between  12‘  .000  ( A  ppian  s  statement)  and  40, 
000  (that  of  Vallejus),  concluding  that  the  “  C-”  of  the  latier  author  must  have 
been  changed  in  vicissitudes  of  so  mauj  ages  into  an  “L,”  and  that  it  originully 
read  XC.  millia  or  20,000. 


SPARTACUS. 


m 

ashamed  of  wliat  they  considered  a  humiliation  and  dis¬ 
grace,  rush  over  the  less  prominent  events,  mentioning 
only  in  an  obscure  manner,  certain  points. 

The  tactics  of  Poplicola  were  to  harass  the  flank  while 
Lentnlus  kept  his  army  in  the  front  of  Spartacus  who 
took  no  further  notice  of  the  latter  than  to  keep  him  from 
doing  mischief.  When  at  last,  Spartacus  saw  his  oppor¬ 
tunity,  burning  with  a  desire  to  avenge  Crixus,  who  had 
fallen  at  Mt.  Garganus,  he  gave  his  men  the  long  coveted 
order  of  attack. 

A  great  and  bloody  battle  was  fought.  All  day  the  glitter 
of  helmets  and  the  clash  of  swords  told  the  horrid  tale  of 
death.  It  was  a  rencounter  of  Greek  and  Gaul  and  Roman 
— representatives  of  the  bravest  lands  of  ancient  days. 

Phalanx  by  phalanx,  the  proud  army  of  Poplicola  gave 
way  before  the  intrepid  assaults  of  the  laborers.  No 
sooner  did  the  Romans  begin  to  weaken  and  bend  than 
the  carnage  redoubled.  Spartacus  made  good  every  op¬ 
portunity  and  crashed  upon  the  now  broken  columns  of 
his  adversary.  Thousands  of  the  Romans  fell  dead  and 
dying.  A  few  escaped.  Night  brought  the  slaughter  to 
a  sullen  close.81  The  victorious  legions  of  Spartacus  re¬ 
turned  to  their  tents  to  rest.  Large  numbers  of  prisoners 
had  fallen  into  their  hands,  among  whom  were  many 
haughty  Roman  knights.  Spartacus  with  bitter  irony 
soon  afterwards  forced  them  to  fight  as  gladiators  in  the 
funeral  games  which  he  celebrated  with  pomp  to  the 
manes  of  Crixus.85 

Thus  we  have  an  account  of  the  fifth  battle  won  by  this 


®3  Florus,  III.  20,  12,  is  greatly  grieved  at  this  humiliation;  “aquopulsi, 
fagatique  (pudet  dicere)  hostes  in  extrema  It  alias  rel'ugerunt.” 

84  “  Sur  la  route  il  rencontra  et  ecrasa  deux  armees  consulaires,  deux  autres 
pretoriennes  et  arriva  enfiu  tout  combatant  et  toujours  victorieux  sur  les  rives 
du  Po,  dont  les  eaux  debordees  lui  barrerent  le  chemin.”  La  Eousse,  Art.  Spar¬ 
tacus.  Plutarch,  Crassus,  tr.  Langhorne,  IX.  says:  “  Lentulus,  the  other  con¬ 
sul,  endeavoured  to  surround  Spartacus,  with  his  forces,  which  were  very  con¬ 
siderable.  Spartacus  met  him  fairly  in  the  held,  beat  bis  lieutenants,  and 
stripped  them  of  their  baggage.”  Scraps  from  the  earliest  and  best  authors  serve 
where  the  thread  of  the  story  is  lost;  and  indicate  the  truthfulness  of  the  his¬ 
tory.  Sallust  has  one  as  follows,  which  though  badly  mangled,  seems  to  relate 
to  this  severe  contest:  *  *  *  “M  or  Trequii  praeter  s  r  ciem  necessariam  Laud 
multo  secus  quam  lerro  noceri  poterat.  At  Varinius,  dutn  liaec  aguntur  u  lugi- 
tivis,  mgra  parte  militum  autumni  gravitate,  neque  ex  postrema  luga,  cum  se- 
vero  edieto  juberentur,  ullis  ad  signa  redcuntibus,  et  qui  relinqui  erant  per 
surnnaa  flgitia detrectantibus  militiam.  Quaestorem  suum  C.  Thoranium  ex  quo 
praesente  vera  facilime  noscerunt,  *  *  *  commiserant,  et  tamen  interim  quuin 
volentibus  numero  quatuor.” 

86  Florus,  III.  20.  •  ‘  Qui  defunctornm  quoque  prmlio  ducum  funera  impera 


FIFTH  BATTLE.  RETALIATION \ 


309 


extraordinary  genius.  The  episode  of  his  avenging  the 
death  of  Crixus  by  forcing  the  proud  Roman  leaders  to 
descend  to  the  debasing  ergastulum  and  meet  in  gladia¬ 
torial  combat  and  with  the  weapons  of  dishonor  they  had 
previously  forced  Crixus  and  Spartacus  to  wear,  bears  at 
once  a  tinge  of  melancholy  and  perhaps  of  gratification 
even  to  the  most  enlarged  minds. 

Not  only  the  consuls  but  also  two  praetorian  armies 
were  completely  routed  by  the  tiger-like  springs  of  Spar¬ 
tacus  86  during  this  phenomenal  march  northward  in  quest 
of  his  boyhood’s  home.  It  is  indeed  interesting  to  know 
that  his  wife  accompanied  him  in  his  wanderings.*1  There 
seems  to  be  a  simplicity  and  tenderness  which  contrasts 
with  the  magnitude  and  the  ferocity  of  his  adventurers; 
something  unique  and  almost  enchanting  is  felt  as  one 
follows  him  step  by  step  along  his  thorny  path. 

After  routing  and  annihilatingthese  praetorian  armies,” 
we  next  find  him  face  to  face  with  the  large  army  of  Len- 
tulus  near  the  river  Po. 

Spartacus  seems  now  to  have  assumed  the  character  of 
a  fugitive,  so  desirous  was  he  to  make  his  escape.  Time 
had  been  given  for  the  remnants  of  the  Romans,  shattered 
but  not  destroyed  at  the  battle  with  Poplicola,  to  join  the 
army  of  Lentulus,  now  augmented  to  huger  numbers  than 
any  body  of  troops  Spartacus  had  yet  encountered. 

There  was  a  praetorian,  or  “  third  consular  army  ”  men¬ 
tioned  by  Plutarch.  Livy  mentions  Cassius  as  a  pro-con¬ 
sul  and  C.  Manlius  as  the  praetor.89  This  would  imply 
that  two  battles  were  fought  between  the  two  great 
pitched  battles  of  Poplicola  and  of  Lentulus,  the  regular 

toriis  celebravit  exequiis,  captivosque  circa  rogum  jussit  arm  1b  depognare.  quasi 
plane  expiaturus  ornne  praaterituin  dedecus,si  de  gladiator*  numerator  fuisset” 
So  also  modern  commentaries ;  Se6  Smiths  Dictionary  oj  Greek  and  Roman  Bio¬ 
graphy,  Art.  Spartacus ,  The  American  Encyclopedia,  Vol.  XIV.  1867,  page  S28. 
makes  no  hesitation  in  placing  this  humiliating  episode  as  an  event  of  the  war, 
“  At  the  head  of  70  000  men  he  triumphed  over  two  consular  armies  in  72,  and 
forced  his  Roman  captives  to  fight  as  gladiators  at  the  funeral  games  which  ho 
celebrated.” 

86  See  Pomponius  Mela.  21;  Livy.  Epitcmies,  XCV.  XOVT.  XCVII;  Diod. 
XXXVIII.  21.  Orosius,  V.  24,  25.  Cf.  also  considerable  in  the  writings  of  Cicero, 
and  in  the  various  English  and  German  Encyclopaedias ;  these  however,  with  lew 
exceptions  are  childishly  erroneous,  contradictory  and  lamentably  incomplete. 

87  Plutarch,  Crassus,  where  we  find  this  assurance. 

88  Cf.  Smith’s  Dictionary  of  Greek  and  Roman  Biography;  La  Roussa,  Diction- 
aire  Universel,  Art.  Spartacus,  and  Tacitus,  Germanui  6,  wheie  we  find  that  her 
name  was  Aurinia, 

^  Livy,  Epitom.  XCVI.  “C.  Cassiua  pro-con»ui  et  Cn.  Mauliuj  preetor  mai* 
#<1  versus  Spartacum  pugnavorunt.” 


310 


SPARTACUS. 


consuls.  Cassius  who  was  praetor  in  the  northern  por¬ 
tions  along  the  Po,  with  a  large  army  of  at  least  10,000 
men,  gave  battle  to  Spartacus  just  before  the  latter  reached 
this  river.  It  was  a  deadly  encounter,  and  though  the 
conflict  raged  with  fierce  determination  on  the  part  of  the 
Romans,  they  were  no  match  for  the  now  invincible  glad¬ 
iator  and  his  veterans  who  gained  one  of  the  most  telling 
triumphs  of  the  war.90  It  was  between  these  two  bloody 
engagements  and  in  this  region  that  Spartacus  spent  the 
winter  of  B.  C.  72-71. 

The  army  of  the  gladiator  now  increased.91  We  should 
be  almost  totally  confounded  without  Livy’s  Epitomies  of 
wrecked  history  at  this  juncture  of  the  war,  and  could 
scarcely  proceed.  It  is  through  these  made  clear,  that 
after  the  defeat  of  Cassius  and  his  10,000  near  the  Po,  as 
related  by  Plutarch,  the  really  great  battle  spoken  of, 
where  Spartacus  met  Lentulus  “fairly,”  was  Livy’s  great 
carnage,92  told  in  words  too  plain  to  admit  of  misunder¬ 
standing.98  Plutarch  says:  “  the  two  consuls  having  con¬ 
solidated  their  troops  in  the  country  of  Picenum,  fell 
upon  Spartacus  in  full  force.  He,  however,  gave  them 
battle  and  with  great  slaughter  nearly  annihilated  them.” 
This  fills  two  missing  data.  We  are  all  along  told  that 
Spartacus,  while  near  the  river  Po,  before  these  “  great 
defeats  ”  of  the  “  two  consuls  and  their  two  praetorian 
armies,”  was  a  fugitive,  anxiously  striving  with  all  his  mil¬ 
itary  tact,  to  escape  from  Roman  territory.  Now,  how¬ 
ever,  we  have  authors  augmenting  the  army  of  Spartacus.94 
We  fmd  him  with  a  vast  and  well  drilled,  well  disciplined, 
well  fed  and  highly  elated  army  of  120,000  men. 

A  march  upon  Rome  was  frustrated  by  the  desire  of 
plunder;  although  it  is  stated  that  Spartacus  did  not  dare 
to  make  the  attempt.98 

ao  Plutarch,  Crassus,  10.  “  He  (Spartacus)  then  continued  his  route  toward* 
the  Alp.’,  but  was  opposed  by  Cassius,  who  commanded  in  that  part  of  Ganl 
which  lay  about  the  Po,  and  came  against  him  at  the  head  of  10,000  men.  A  bat¬ 
tle  ensued,  in  which  Cassius  was  defeated,  with  great  loss,  and  saved  himself 
not  without  difficulty.’  So  Livy,  Epitome  of  liber,  XCVI.  et  supra,  note  90. 

'■>i  Plutarch,  Crassus ,  10 

82  Livy,  Epitome ,  XCVI.  “  Idcirco  duo  consoles,  junctis  copiis  in  agro  Piceno 
ei  concurreruut.  Sed  ilia  (Spartacus  licet  eas  magna  clade  profligasset.” 

93  Scliambach,  Italischer  Sklavenauf stand,  S.  8,  concedes  the  scholiast  view. 
I  ivy  did  not  write  the  epitomies  to  his  books,  but  thinks  that  they  are  iaithftd 
to  the  original  contems. 

w  Livy,  XCVI.  of  Epitomies,  of  the  lost  books.  Appian,  I.  117. 

“  L ivy.  Epitome,  XCVI.  “  Ad  Urbem  ducre  non  est  auem.** 


SIXTH  AND  SEVENTH  BATTLES . 


911 


This  great  battle  between  Spartacus  and  the  combined 
armies  of  the  two  consuls,  Lentulus  and  Poplicola,  took 
place  a  long  distance  south  of  the  Po,  near  where  Sparta¬ 
cus  had  defeated  the  first  consular  army  under  Poplicola; 
for  it  was  in  the  territory  of  Picenum,  nearly  200  miles 
from  the  river.  The  army  of  the  proletaries  was  now 
about  100  miles  northeastward  from  Rome  and  was 
marching  southward.  This  arrangement  of  data  brings 
the  statement  of  Plutarch  in  line  and  clears  up  the  whole 
jumble.  The  story  of  Cassius  and  his  defeated  army  of 
10,000  was  Pirn  arch’s  battle  of  the  Po.  Spartacus  then 
taking  the  offensive,  marched  southward  into  Picenum, 
where  he  fought  the  great  battle  of  Picenum — the  magna 
cladis  of  Livy. 

Great  consternation  now  prevailed  at  Rome.  The  news 
of  the  disaster  to  Lentulus  and  Poplicola  and  their  splendid 
armies  was  regarded  as  a  calamity.  Indignation  raised 
to  its  highest  pitch  and  was  only  equalled  by  mortifica¬ 
tion  and  shame.  A  gladiator,96  and  slave,  who,  all  his  life¬ 
time  had  been  a  poor  man,  earning  a  scanty  living  by 
manual  toil,  had  combined  audacity  with  genius,  gathered 
the  menial  hordes97  that  worked  the  estates  of  haughty 
landlords  and  in  eight  battles,  at  hand-to-hand  combat 
and  at  the  test  of  st  rategem,  endurance,  valor  and  prowess 
had  worsted,  overthrown  and  annihilated  the  patrician 
gentry  of  Rome.98 

Lentulus  was  recalled  and  disgraced.  His  humiliation 
has  alwajrs  been  a  mystery  to  readers  of  history.  The 
true  light  of  the  affair  has  been  shut  out — so  dark  was 
the  history  of  this  matter  kept  for  ages  from  the  reader’s 
mind. 

Spartacus  was  maligned  by  everybody;  and  public  sen¬ 
timent  turned  a  smile  in  his  favor  into  a  heresy  and  in¬ 
timidated  the  favorable  opinions  and  conversation  of  the 
people  as  well  as  blockaded  the  will  and  the  pen  of  his¬ 
torians. 

Spartacus,  everywhere  victorious  was,  after  the  great 

••  Floras,  III,  20.  Tandem  etiam  totis  imperii  viribus  contra  mirmillionem 
oonsurgitur.  ”  • 

w  Livy,  Epitome,  XCV.  ‘  Res  proserae,  et  assolet.  statim  inveuerunt  socios. 
maltosque  pastures,  durum  et  pernix  genus.” 

»»  Cicero,  Ad  Atticum,  VI.  22.  “Cum  Spar  taco— dr.  ce  fugitivorum,  qui  bel- 
Jnm  servile  commovit,  et  vel  cum  quiugeutis  pnedombus  jam  satis  mab  facers 

potuit.” 


812 


SPARTACUS, 


battle  in  Picenum,  forced  to  proceed  southward  by  his 
foolish  soldiers  who,  puffed"  with  success,  were  wanting 
in  obedience  and  could  not  participate  in  the  dream  of 
Spartacus  to  retire  to  the  pastoral  charms  of  his  native 
land.  We  next  find  him  marching  to  Thuria,  with  a  vast 
army  and  great  quantities  of  plunder,  with  the  intention 
of  passing  the  winter  of  72-71,  B.  G.  But  another  victory 
was  yet  to  be  won  before  the  army  could  reach  its  winter 
quarters — the  battle  withMummius  in  Picenum.100 

It  was  now  nearing  the  time  of  the  Roman  Comitias,  or 
the  assembly  of  Roman  citizens  for  voting  for  new  officers. 
Among  these  officers  consuls  were  to  be  elected.  But  so 
great  was  the  terror  which  Spartacus  had  inspired  that 
no  candidates  were  to  be  found.  This  phenomenon  is  ex¬ 
plained  by  the  fact  that  whoever  should  be  elected  consul 
would  have  to  go  in  person  to  meet  the  dreaded  gladia¬ 
tor.  Finally,  after  much  hesitation,  Marcus  Licinius 
Crassus,  consented  to  be  nominated  and  of  course,  received 
the  full  vote  and  confidence  of  the  people. 

Accordingly,  Crassus,  prepared  for  the  campaign  against 
the  great  guerrilla  chieftain  with  eight  full  legions  of 
Roman  soldiers  mustered  for  the  occasion.  But  the  frag¬ 
ments  of  the  defeated  armies  of  Poplicola  and  Lentulus, 
together  with  the  praetorian  forces,  also  shattered  by 
Spartacus,  were  now  returning  to  the  metropolis  in  a 
straggling,  demoralized  condition.  All  these  were  soon 
joined  to  the  new  army  of  Crassus.101 

The  new  confidence  which  this  election  of  Crassus  in¬ 
spired  caused  a  great  number  of  young  Roman  gentry 
to  volunteer,  and  we  may  be  certain  that  the  eight  legions 
were  full.  A  full  Roman  legion  of  that  era  consisted  of 
6,000  men  which  makes  48,000  for  the  new  army  of  eight 
legions. 

99  Cf.  Smith’s,  Dictionary  of  Greek  and  Roman  Biography. 

100  This  account  is  given  in  Plutarch’s  Life  of  Crassus.  Mommsen,  History 
rtf  Rome,  here  breaks  the  story  of  Spartacus  and  his  victories  into  a  tangle  of  un¬ 
intelligible  data,  although  its  thread  is  seen  to  be  quite  clear,  with  a  little  pains. 

101  Appian,  Historia  Romana,  I,  118:  “  Tpte'rrj?  re  rjv  jjfirj  /cal  </>o^epo?  avroZy  6 

?r<$Aejuoy,  yeAtiijuevoy  ev  ap^rj  *at  Kara^/povovjuevoy  wy  ju.ovoju.axwv.  lTporedeiVijy  re 
crparriyitv  aAAwv  ^eipoTOvtay  o/cvoy  en-et^ev  an-avray,  Kai  napijyyeWer  ovSeiy,  jue^pi 
Autivtoy  Kpacrcroy',  yevei  itai  n\ovry  ’Pwjxaiwv  Sia^avryy,  aveSe^aro  arparriy^aeiVy 
«ai  T«'Ae«riv  aAAoiy>)Aavv«v«iriT6v2irapTaKov.”  Plutarch  says;  “  No  sooner  were 
the  senate  informed  of  these  miserable  proceedings,  than  they  expressed  the 
greatest  indignation  against  the  consuls,  and  gave  orders  that  they  should  be 
superseded  in  the  command,  Crassus  was  the  person  they  pitched  upon  as  a 
euccessor,  and  many  of  the  nobility  served  under  lnra,  as  volunteers,  as  well  on 
account  of  his  political  influence  and  from  personal  regard.” 


NINTH  BATTLE.  MU  TINA. 


313 


From  the  start,  there  must  have  been  at  least  100,000 
men  sent  out  under  Crassus  against  the  rebels,  which 
force  kept  constantly  increasing  to  the  end. 

Returning  to  Spartacus,  we  find  evidence102  that  while 
at  the  zenith  of  his  popularity  between  the  Po — which  he 
did  not  cross — and  Picenum,  he  offered  inducements  to 
all  who  would  cast  off  the  yoke  of  despotism,  to  join. 
That  the  slaves  took  the  offer  of  freedom  is  evident  from 
the  number,  which  commentators  venture  to  put  at  120- 
GOO,  and  which  we  positively  know  soon  greatly  augmented. 
Many  of  the  higher  classes  spurned  offers  to  co-operate 
because  they  “disdained  to  join  slaves; ”  although  they 
hated  the  Romans.103 

When  Crassus  arrived  in  Cis-Alpine  Gaul,  near  the  city 
of  Mutina,  where  the  army  of  Spartacus  lay,  he  studied 
closely  the  traits  of  his  antagonist  and  concluded  to  adopt 
the  tactics  of  Fabius  who  had  previously  been  successful 
over  Hannibal,  by  worrying  him  and  not  giving  battle. 
After  harassing  Spartacus  in  rear  and  flank  for  some 
time  he  sent  the  pro-consul,  C.  Cassius  Longinus,  around 
on  the  other  side  with  orders  to  be  watchful  and  goad 
the  enemy,  without  hazarding  an  engagement;  but  the 
fox-witted  gladiator,  with  apparent  indifference,  allured 
this  Roman  into  an  idea  that  he  could  safely  go  beyond 
his  orders,  and  attack  a  wing  of  the  workingmen  who 
were  in  reality,  impatient  for  the  fray. 

At  a  weak  moment,  least  suspected  and  least  watched, 
Spartacus  gave  the  welcome  order  of  battle.  The  shout 
went  up  and  with  it  came  the  force  of  the  onset.  Cassius 
was  crushed  by  the  unexpected  blow  and  completely 
routed.  The  field  of  Mutina  covered  with  the  slain,  re¬ 
mained  with  the  workingmen. 

Spartacus,  slowly  continuing  his  march  southward,  har¬ 
assed  and  tormented  by  Crassus  who  was  too  good  a  com¬ 
mander  to  venture  a  general  engagement,  studied  every 
opportunity  to  catch  the  Roman  at  a  weak  point.104  Op- 

102  Cf.  Larousse,  Dictionaire  Universel,  Art.  Spartaeus,  baaed  on  the  remarks 
of  Plutarch. 

103  These  gems  giving  the  finishing  touches  of  the  story,  are  talren  from  iso¬ 
lated  fragments  of  the  broken  histories  so  badly  mutilated  indeed,  that  we 
should  be  loth  to  pass  upon  them,  did  not  our  inferences  coincide  with  those  of 
others  who  have  taken  great  pains  to  get  the  kernel  of  the  theme. 

104  “ Le  general  Rouiain  se  borna  de  couvnr  le  Latium,  n’  osant  hasarder 
battaille  coutra  le  tenable  gladiate  sr  et  se  contenta  &  le  harceler  et  le  faire  mis¬ 
erable,  par  ces  lieutenants,  invariablement  battus  quand  ils  avaient  la  t6m6rit$ 


814 


S  PART  AC  US. 


jportunity  soon  came.  The  propraetor,  Cn.  Manlius,  wan 
caught  at  an  unguarded  moment  and  in  a  terribly  bloody 
conflict  of  which  we  have  only  a  sullen  and  lugubrious 
mention  by  historians,  was  torn  to  atoms  by  the  charge 
of  a  heavy  detachment  of  Spartacus. 

The  condition  of  the  Roman  army  was  now  that  of  ter¬ 
ror.  After  the  defeat  of  Cassius  at  the  city  of  Mutina 
and  of  Manlius  at  a  point  southward,  we  find  Spartacus, 
still  harassed  by  Crassus,  in  the  rich  valleys  of  Picenum, 
the  scenes  of  the  next  and  ninth  battle  in  which  the  glad¬ 
iator  chieftain  was  conqueror.  Crassus  posted  himself 
here,  in  advance  of  the  workingmen,  for  the  purpose  of 
intercepting  their  march  southward. 

Mummius,  one  of  the  most  trustworthy  lieutenants  of 
Crasus,  wras  sent  round  to  the  flank  of  the  enemy,  with  or¬ 
ders  to  continue  strategical  manoeuvres;  and  was  strictly 
charged  to  follow  him,  but  not  to  hazard  a  battle.  Mum¬ 
mius  had  more  courage  and  conceit  than  discretion  or 
obedience.  II  e  proved  to  be  precisely  the  man  whom  Spar¬ 
tacus  wanted.  The  foxy  gladiator  now  dallied  with  ruse 
and  incantation  and  finally  decoyed  the  whole  force,  con¬ 
sisting  of  12,000  men  into  an  assailable  point.  This  whole 
manoeuvre  seems  to  have  been  deeply  laid  inasmuch  as  it 
contained  an  admixture  of  flattery.  At  any  rate,  how¬ 
ever  ambidextrous  the  incentive,  the  decoy  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  ambition  on  the  other,  prevailed. 

Just  when  Mummius  believed  he  was  in  the  act  of  rid¬ 
ding  his  country  of  a  loathsome  foe,  a  wild  war-whoop  of 
the  mirmillions  burst  out  along  the  lines.  Spartacus  at 
the  enemy’s  vulnerable  points  gave  the  order  of  attack. 
This  time  it  was  many  against  few.  Mummius  was  over¬ 
slaughed.  “  His  whole  army  completely  routed.  Many 
were  killed  upon  the  battle  field.  Others  terrified,  cast 
away  their  arms  and  saved  their  lives  by  flight.” 106 

Again  the  arms  of  Spartacus  were  victorious.  Mum¬ 
mius  was  annihilated.101  Disaster  again  convulsed  the 
aegis  of  slaveholding,  degenerate  Rome,  whose  haughty 
men,  many  of  whom  owned  at  that  moment  from  1,000  to 

do  livi'er  combat.”  La  Kousse,  Dictionaire  Universel.  Art.  Spartacus. 

ioii  Plutarch,  Idem;  Appian  ;  Mommsen  and  tome  ol  the  Encyclopedias. 
io'  Cf.  International  Encyclopedia,  Art.  Spartacus.  Although  we  give  re  tore  nee 
to  original  authority  there  is  a  variety  ol  readings  and  oi  opinions ;  and  we  tber**- 
t'ore  cite  contemporaneous  writers  and  recommend  them  to  the  reader. 


TENTH  BATTLE.  MUMM1US  RUINED.  $15 


10,000  slaves  each,  were  freshly  reminded  by  every  victory 
of  Spartacus,  of  the  doom  of  their  crumbling  institution, 
sacred,  as  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  paganism  they  wor¬ 
shiped  for  a  religion. 

Crassus  had  cause  to  be  severe.  Plutarch  adds  that: 
“  He  severely  reprimanded  Mummius  who  had  escaped 
unhurt.  He  armed  the  few  survivors  anew,  insisting  upon 
their  giving  bond  of  fidelity  to  the  new  arms  given  them. 
He  took  500  of  the  most  cowardly,  divided  them  into  50 
platoons  and  these  into  decades,  one  of  whom  was  by 
lot,  put  to  death;  in  this  way  recalling  an  ancient  military 
usage  of  punishment.  This  kind  of  punishment  in  fact, 
is  the  mark  of  the  greatest  infamy ;  for  as  the  execution 
is  public,  in  sight  of  the  whole  army,  circumstances  that 
are  awful  and  affecting  follow.” 108  But  this  horrible 
chastisement  came  late.  Spartacus  had  again  been  vic¬ 
torious. 

But  two  causes  now  set  in  to  cast  shadows  over  the 
glory  of  the  conquering  gladiator.  His  own  ignorant 
and  foolish  soldiers  began  again  to  show  signs  of  insub¬ 
ordination,  elated  by  their  never  failing  successes.  They 
wanted  to  plunder  and  feast  upon  the  fat  of  the  land; 
and  while  they  were  actually  becoming  demoralized  and 
dissolute  in  their  extraordinary  experience  of  victory, 
their  new  enemy  Crassus  was  growing  wiser  and  surer 
in  his  harrowing  experience  of  defeat.  These  two  causes 
combined  to  bring  the  terrible  lion  to  his  end. 

Crassus,  after  this  ferocious  specimen  of  the  cruelty  of 
war,  attacked  Spartacus,  and  drove  him  to  the  sea.109  But 

108  Plutarch,  idem;  Appian,  Historia  Romana ,  1. 118.  “  Kal  rwi'Se  p.kv  a^rtxa 

Sta/cA^pujaa?,  poAAa/a?  rjTTJjp.evan',  e 7ri  i Javarw  p/epos  StKarov  Siefy&eipev.  Ol  S’ 
ov\  ovrut  vop.i(,ovmv,  a AAa  navrl  tu>  crrpaT<Z  avp-fHaKovra  Kal  rovSe,  Kal  r\TTr\p.evov^ 
■ray-riot'  Sta/cA^puxrai  to  6««ar or,  Kal  avekelv  es  TerpaKio^tAiovs,  ovSev  Sea  to  7rAr}dos 
tj'Soiaaai'TO.  orrorepws  S’  e7rpa£e,  <po/3epu>repos  avrols  tijs  T<av  no\eu.L(av  rjTrr/?  Ravels 
aifTiKa  avplu>v  InapraKcioiv  e<f>’  eavTutv  nov  crTpaToireSevoyrdiV  e/cparei,  Kal  Svo  avra >v 
pepil  KaraKaviov  sir’  axnbv  rjAawe  tov  XnapraKOV  ervv  KaratftpovrioeL.”  Sallust,  His- 
toriarum  Populi  Romani ,  Ubri.  Recensio  of  Anton.  Tliysius,  old  Lugdunum  edi¬ 
tion,  p.  502,  lias  a  sadly  mutilated  scrap;  “Sorte  ductos  fusti  necat:”  and  the 
learned  editcr  in  a  note  explains  as  follows:  “ Sorte  ductos  fusti  necat ,  Puto  legen- 
dum,  eductos,  accipiendumq;  de  severa  ac  militari  Crassi  disciplina,  qua  idem 
in  fugitoribus  eoercendis  usus,  ex  duabus  Mummianis  Legionibus  contra edictum 
lmperatoris  in  hostexn  (Spartacum)  pugnare  ausis,  profligatisque ;  quingenpit 
primos,  unde  initium  lugae  factum  fuerat,  sorte  eductos  decimari  preecetos. 
Quod  vetus  supplied  genus  interm ortu uni,  ac  desitum  jampridem,  postlimiuio 
In  castra  Romana  reductum  a  Crasso.”  According  to  Sallust  they  were  killed 
with  clubs. 

l OP  Appian  1.  118,  fin:  “  NiKTjcras  Se  «ai  tovSc  Aapirpto?  eSiuiKC  (ftevyovra  cm 
tt,*  daAaacraj/  <o?  StanXivaov/J-evou  e;  St/ceAtai',  Kal  /caraAajSuji'  a7reTa<i>peve  koj 
<ai  i  n’zoTavpov.'’  Mommsen,  Hhlory  of  Rome ,  Vol.  IV.  p.  106. 


SPARTACUS. 


tin's  signal  victory  mentioned  by  Appian,  is  denied  by 
Plutarch  in  the  following  terms:  “  After  thus  chastising 
his  men,  he  (Crassus)  led  them  against  the  enemy.  But 
Spartacus  turned  back  and  retired  through  Lucania  to 
the  sea.” 110 

Spartacus  marched  his  army  southward  along  the  Ad¬ 
riatic  to  embark  for  Sicily  across  the  straits  of  Messina. 
There  is  strong  circumstantial  evidence  that  privateers  of 
the  Mediterranean  assisted  Spartacus;  and  if  we  judge  from 
this  point  of  view,  a  new  light  is  thrown  upon  the  history 
of  his  career.  No  written  records,  however,  exist  prov¬ 
ing  this,  and  for  want  of  it  we  follow  the  story  as  it  is  told. 

If  the  pirates,  so-called,  refused  to  help  him,  thus  clearly 
working  in  the  interest  of  Koine,  as  Mommsen  suggests, 
why  should  Rome  have  immediately  instituted  a  man-hunt 
against  them  ?  Tacitus  has  some  remarks  favoring  our 
theory  that  the  pirates  were  faithful  to  Spartacus.  An¬ 
other  potent  question  is,  how  did  the  gladiator  get  the 
great  army  of  300,000  men  ?  Did  not  the  privateers  ship 
them  over  from  Sicily?  We  shall  refer  to  these  things 
later. 

This  new  move  of  Spartacus  to  reach  Sicily  is  called  by 
some,  his  last  stroke  of  genius.  It  was  an  original  one. 
There  had  been,  some  27  years  before,  a  great  rebellion 
of  the  slaves  in  Sicily 111  and  at  this  moment,  when  Spar¬ 
tacus  approached  that  fair  isle — the  granary  of  Home — 
it  was  suffering  from  the  most  inhuman  exactions,  by  or¬ 
der  of  Verres,  the  insatiate  and  avaricious  despoiler,  whose 
greedy  havoc  was  soon  afterwards  opposed  by  Cicero. 
The  slaves  and  property  owners  alike,  were  goaded  by 
this  man’s  rapacity  to  the  verge  of  rebellion  against  Home. 
Had  Spartacus  succeeded  in  crossing  safely  with  his  army 
the  chances  are  that  the  goaded  people  would  have  gladly 


no  Plutarch,  Life  of  Crassut. 

mi  See  chapter  xi  supra.  The  strange  words  of  Cornelius  Tacitus,  Annaliuin, 
liher,  XV.  cap.  46;  referring  to  Spartaous  and  the  Roman  flotilla  against  the  pi¬ 
rates,  show  how  fearful  was  the  danger,  and  they  seem  to  advert  to  the  link  of 
friendship  existing  between  them  and  Spartacus:  “  Per  idem  tempos  gladiatores 
spud  oppidum  PraaneBte  temptata  eruptione  praesidio  militis,  qui  custos  ades- 
set,  coerciti  sunt,  iam  Spartacum  et  vetera  mala  rumoribus  ferente  populo,  ut 
est  novarum  rerum  cupiens  pavidusque.  Nec  multo  post  clades  rei  navalis  acci- 
pitur,  non  belio  (quippe  haud  alias  tam  immota  pax),  sed  certum  ad  diem  in 
Campaniam  redire  classem  Nero  jusserat, non  exceptis  maris  casibus.  Ergo  gui>- 
urnatores,  quamvis  saeviente  pelago,  a  Formiis  rnovere;  et  gravi  Africo,  dum 
promunturium  Miseni  superare  contendunt,  Cumanis  litoribus  Impacti  trire- 
miurn  plerasquo  et  minora  navigia  passim  amiievunt.” 


THE  PRIVATEERS  LEND  A  HAND. 


317 


joined  him  in  overwhelming  numbers,  if  for  nothing  else 
than  to  rid  themselves  of  this  insatiable  Roman  governor 
whose  exactions,  to  satisfy  personal  greed,  well-nigh 
brought  Sicily  to  bankruptcy  and  ruin.112 

On  his  arrival  at  the  sea  opposite  the  Sicilian  shore, 
Spartacus  who  had  formed  this  plan  of  crossing  over  with 
his  entire  army  for  the  purpose  of  recruiting  from  the 
ranks  of  the  slaves,  negotiated  with  the  freebooters  or 
brigand  mariners,  as  they  are  mercilessly  called  in  the  his¬ 
tories,  who  from  ancient  times  ransacked  the  coasts  for 
plunder.118 

They  exhibited  a  quality  of  perfidy,  perhaps  against 
Rome — although  the  historians  show  that  it  was  against 
Spartacus — which  actually  resulted  in  their  being  swept 
from  their  trade;  for  soon  after  the  suppression  of  the 
servile  war  which  they  are  represented  to  have  been  too 
treacherous  and  disingenuous  to  sustain,  the  Romans  sent 
an  expedition  against  them  which  certainly  was  a  contin¬ 
uation  of  the  great  man-hunt  ending  in  their  own  exter¬ 
mination.114  If  Spartacus  could  have  accomplished  this 
magnificent  strategical  feat  and  realized  his  scheme  of  pas¬ 
sing  the  winter  in  Sicily  where  the  terribly-oppressed  and 
down-trodden  slaves  would  have  deserted  in  vast  num¬ 
bers  and  extricated  themselves  from  their  otherwise  hope¬ 
less  servitude,  he  might,  allowing  him  his  wonted  success, 
not  only  have  beaten  Crassus,  but  also  the  armies  of 
Pompey  and  Lucullus  when  they  afterwards  arrived. 

In  fact,  we  know  not  what  would  have  been  the  final 
result  upon  the  human  race— indeed,  we  are  loth  to  spec¬ 
ulate  ;  for  under  the  humane  management  of  Spartacus  it 
might  have  resulted  in  a  permanent  recognition  of  the 
honor  and  merit  of  human  labor  which  was  in  those  times 
denied. 

It  is  enough  to  repeat  what  history  relates,  that  the  self¬ 
ish,  dishonest  and  treacherous  pirates  took  the  proffered 
gold  of  Spartacus  but  failed  to  land  him  in  Sicily;  for 
though  his  army  enormously  increased,  yet  his  failing  to 

112  Cicero,  Verves,  passim.  Here  Cicero  gives  au  eloquent  account  of  thin 
man’s  extortious.  Cicero  assumed  the  causa  of  the  people  vs.  Verres  and  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  obtaining  a  verdict. 

ns  Beeren,  Peuplede  l*  Antiquity, V ol.  II.  pp.  170—170  of  the  From  h  translation. 

in  Liv.,  XCVIII.  “L.  Metellus  prsator  in  Sicilia  adverse, s  piratos  prospero 
re®  gessit."  ( Epitome)  ;  Vellejus  Paterculus,  Abridgment  oj  Latin  JJistory ,  Boofi. 
11.  c.  31. 


318 


SPARTA  0U& 


get  there  probably  disconcerted  and  squeezed  him  betwixt 
the  mill-stones  of  peril  and  hope,  leaving  him  heart-broken 
and  defeated.  It  was  the  knell  of  Spartacus.  What  fur¬ 
ther  the  historian  can  trace  of  this  great  general  and  most 
marvelous  genius  is  but  the  description  of  prodigious 
spasms  and  writhings  of  a  dying  giant. 

Crassus,  watching  from  a  distance  these  defeated  man¬ 
oeuvres  of  the  gladiator,  conceived  the  idea  of  imprisoning 
him  in  the  narrow  neck  or  point  of  the  promontory  of 
Bruttium  or  Rhegium,  by  throwing  up  a  line  of  circum- 
vaUation  across  this  miniature  isthmus  with  an  object  of 
hemming  the  proletarian  army  in  and  besieging  it  during 
the  winter.  The  writer  of  the  article  in  the  Great  French 
Universel  Dictionary  declares  that  Crassus  was  positively 
afraid  to  give  the  enemy  an  honorable  battle.116  Sparta¬ 
cus,  regarded  this  enormous  line  of  retrenchments  with 
contempt.  It  was  an  earthwork  reaching  from  sea  to 
sea,  being,  as  Plutarch  tells  us,  “  36  miles  long,  fifteen  feet 
high  and  a  wall  above  this  of  considerable  height — a  work 
great  and  difficult.” 

It  was  now  the  winter  of  B.  C.  71-70.  The  supplies 
for  the  army  of  the  proletaries  were  disappearing.  Some¬ 
thing  must  be  done.  Spartacus  watched  his  opportunity, 
bent  on  retreat  which  involved  an  escape  from  this  trap. 
One  dark  wintry  night  amid  the  roar  of  a  storm,  while  the 
forces  of  Crassus  lay  chilled,  and  torpid,  least  alert  and 
fitted  for  surprise,  the  army  of  the  slaves,  at  the  command 
of  their  leader,  burst  from  the  bivouacs  and  sword  in  hand 
scaled  the  intrenchment,  filling  it  with  earth  and  wood, 
and  in  spite  of  all  resistance  passed  over  and  gained  the 
free  plains  beyond.116  Thus  commenced  the  admirable  re- 

116  Speaking  of  Spartacus  he  says:  “Telle  6tait,  cependant  la  terreur  qu’  U 
inspirait  encore,  que  Crassus  entreprit  de  1’  enfermer  dans  la  presq’  tie  de  Khe- 
ginrn,  par  une  l'osse  d’un  retranchment  de  15  lieus  de  longeur  !  Le  chef  des  ea- 
Claves  temoigna  son  profond  m6pris  pour  cet  immense  travaille  6t  pour  des  en- 
nemis  qui  n’ osaient  plus  1’  attaquer  en  face;  puis  quand  les  vivres  oommen- 
ceraient  de  lui  manquer,  11  combla  une  partio  de  la  tranches  pendant  une  unit 
orageuse,  iorca  les  lignes  der  Remains  et  manouvra  libroment  dans  la  Lncanie, 
on  il  extermina  encore  les  troupes  des  deux  leutbnants  de  Crassus  qui  oseraient 
P  in  quieter  dans  saretraite/'  La  liousse,  Dxctionaire  Univertel ^  Art.  Spartacus. 

116  Appian,  Historia  Romana,  1.119:  'SnapTaKos  8e  Innias  jrodei<  a.vriL  n-pocn-ofro* 
nepip.ei'ui',  ovksti  per  es  paxrjv  yfei  rtf  arparw  iravri,  iroAAa  S’  ro<<:  n tpijca^- 

rj/xevois  ava  pepos,  a(frvu>  re  Kal  av avroi?  iirntinruiv,  (frame Aov«  Te  f  i/Awi-  r if* 
rdcfrpoy  epfiaiWiov  jcareaaie,  sal  rov  novov  avrol s  Svcrepyov  eiroui.  Ai\p.aA<«>T(>»'  r« 
'Pto/xatov  eKpepairev  er  tco  peron-xP-iVi  Seiievv?  rot*  i&iois  tt/v  o\friv  iv  ntiaovr<x\  p* 
•cpaTov^res.”  Mommsen,  History  of  Rome ,  IV.  p.  107;  “but  in  a  dark  winter 
night  Spartacus  broke  through  the  lines  of  the  enemy,  and  In  the  spring  of  71 


GREAT  BATTLE  OF  CROTON. 


treat  of  Sparkle  us — a  retreat  which  for  fine  generalship 
combining  fertility  of  expedient,  quelling  insubordination 
within,  and  overcoming  obstacles  without,  may  yet,  when 
more  carefully  studied  and  better  known,  come  to  be  re¬ 
garded  as  one  of  the  true  models  in  warfare.  The  Roman 
general  now  thoroughly  frightened,  wrote  to  Rome  for 
more  help.117 

It  appears  that  after  the  failure  of  Spartacus  to  reach 
Sicily,  a  revolt  of  prodigious  extent  took  place  in  his  army. 
A  body  of  probably  over  50,000  men  separated  from  the 
main  army.  They  vaunted  that  Spartacus  was  a  coward; 
dared  not  meet  the  Roman  general ;  that  they  would  not 
longer  be  restrained  from  giving  the  hated  enemy  battle. 
They  accordingly  appointed  as  their  commanders  two  of 
the  most  boasting  of  the  malcontents,  Gannicusand  Cas- 
tus,  and  demanded  of  these  inexperienced  captains  to  be 
led  to  battle,111  They  then  provoked  the  army  of  Crassus 
to  an  engagement.  When  Spartacus,  whose  wearying  sym- 


wm  once  more  in  Lucania."  Plutarch,  Crassus,  tells  the  same  story,  while 
Schambach,  clearly  shows  it  to  have  been  the  spring  of  70. 

117  Appian,  I.  119-120:  “  Oi  S’  ip  acrei  'Pa)p.ouoi  r>js  noAiopjcias  nwdavopevoi., 
Kai  aSofouvres  ei  xpovios  avrols  iarai  nbXepos  po vopaxup,  irpodtariKeyop  «iri  rij v 
arpareiap  Dopiripop  apn  d$nc6ptpop  e£  *Ij 3pi'a?,  m aTtvopres  r)8i)  Sv<r\«pts  elvai  *ai 
peya  to  SnapTaKnov  ipyov-  Ata  8e  t rjp  ^eipo70viav  r>ji'6e  nal  Kpacxaos,  Iva  prj  TO 
icAeos  -yevoiro  TIopnrjLov,  ndvra  rponov  eneiyopevos  in extipei  r<Z  '2na.pTa.Kut,  teal  6 
2napTaKOS,  top  Tlopnrpov  npo\afieip  d(t ojv,  es  avudr/Kas  top  Kpdaaop  wpocKaAetTO.” 
Crassus  much  frightened,  certainly  sent  for  and  obtained  Doth  the  army  under 
Pompey,  victorious  in  Spain  and  that,  of  I.ucnllos  from  Asia  Minor,  victorious  in 
the  Mithridatic  war.  See  also  La  Ilousse,  Vidioriairc  Unlversel,  Art.  Spartacus: 
“Crassus  ecrlvait  an  senat  afiln  qu’on  envoyat  jiour  le  seconder,  PornpSe  alors  de 
retour  d’  Eepagne,  et  Lucnllus  qui  revenait  d’  Asie.  Mais  il  repentait  bientSt  de 
cette  demarche  et  reclierehat  les  occasions  de  terminer  la  guerre  afln  d’  avoir 
eeule  1’  honneur.” 

ns  Plutarch,  idem,  is  oue  of  our  best  witnesses  on  this  great  battle:  “He 
resolved,  therefore,  in  the  first  place,  to  attack  the  troops  which  had  revolted, 
and  formed  a  separate  body,  under  the  command  oft  woolncers  named  Canniciug 
and  Castus.  With  this  view,  he  sent  »  corps  ol  six  thousand  men  before  to  seize 
an  eminence  which  he  thought  would  be  of  service  to  him  but  ordered  them  to 
conduct  their  enterprise  with  all  imaginable  secrecy.  They  observed  his  direc¬ 
tions;  and,  to  oonceal  tlieir  march  the  better,  covered  their  helmets  and  the  rest 
of  their  arms.  Two  women,  however,  who  were  sacrificing  before  the  enemy's 
camp,  discovered  them,  and  they  would  probably  have  met  their  fate,  had  not 
Crassus  advanced  immediately,  and  given  the  enemy  battle  This  was  the  most 
obstinate  action  in  the  whole  war.  Twelve  thousand  three  hundred  of  the  enemy 
were  killed,  of  which  number  there  were  only  two  found  wounded  in  the  back; 
the  rest  died  in  their  ranks,  after  the  bravest  exertions  of  valour  ’’  Livy,  whose 
valuable  history  of  this  great  war  is  lost  is  fortunately  quoted  by  Frontinus, 
Strategematon,  II.  5,  34,  out  of  the  97th,  the  book  of  the  Annates  Ab  Urbe  Condxta,  as 
follows:  “  Trigintaquinqne millia  armatorum  (fugitivorum  a  Crasso devictorum) 
eo  proelio  interfecta  cum  ipsis  ducibus  (Casto  et  Gannico)  Livins  tradit,  recep- 
tas  quinque  Komanorum  aquilas,  signa  sex  et  viginti.  multa  spolia,  inter  quae 
fasces  cvim  securibus.”  This  makes  the  numbers  actually  killed  to  have  been 
35,000.  Undoubtedly  this  is  the  more  accurate  estimate;  it  also  shows  the  enor- 
raerss  magnitude  of  the  arm.v  of  Srartacn« 


320 


SPARTACUS. 


pathies  echoed  his  foreknowledge  of  the  certain  result,  per¬ 
ceived  this  movement,  he  evidently  gave  up  all  for  lost  and 
resolved  to  die,  bravely  combating  for  his  cause.  Crassus 
met  the  seceders  and  a  terribly  bloody  battle  took  place 
near  Croton,  on  the  banks  of  a  lake  in  lower  Lucania, 
whose  waters,  Plutarch  says,  are  “  sometimes  pure  and 
sometimes  salt.”  The  contest  was  extremely  severe. 
Plutarch  wrongly  describes  it  as  the  greatest  of  the  war. 
It  was  long  before  the  army  of  the  seceders  gave  way. 
Not  a  man  flinched.  Of  the  heaps  of  slain  none  were 
wounded  in  the  back;  all  falling  in  the  ranks  performing 
the  bravest  acts  of  valor.  At  last,  overcome  by  numbers 
they  were  forced  to  yield  a  little,  giving  the  Romans  an 
advantage  which  they  took  and  killed  12,300,  or  as  Livy, 
quoted  by  Frontin,  probably  more  correctly  puts  it,  35, 
000, 1,9  of  the  seceders,  on  the  spot;  nor  would  any  of  the 
proletaries  have  survived  the  slaughter  had  not  Sparta- 
cus,  by  a  forced  march,  arrived  in  season  to  interfere  and 
put  an  end  to  the  bloody  work.  But  Ganicusand  Castus 
were  among  the  slain, 

Crassus  on  the  whole,  had  made  little  to  be  proud  of 
by  this  last  encounter;  for  his  forces  were  much  more 
numerous  than  the  seceders.  Besides  he  certainly  lost  a 
large  number  of  men  in  the  contest,  and  perceiving  that 
its  effect  was  only  to  heal  the  mutiny  and  knit  the  rebels 
together  into  an  indissoluble  brotherhood  by  teaching  the 
dangers  of  their  temerity,  he  began  to  fear  that  Sparta- 
eus,  now  rapidly  marching  northward,  was  earnestly  med¬ 
itating  an  attack  on  Rome. 

The  army  of  the  proletaries,  still  hugging  the  shores 
of  the  sea,  was  now  nearing  the  Tarentine  gulf  on  its 
march  northward  toward  the  port  of  Brundusium  in  its 
second  attempt  to  reach  Sicily  by  sea.  J ust  after  cross- 

119  Frontin,  in  his  Strategematon,  or  Military  Science,  liber  IT.  cap.  ▼.  34,  TH 
Jnsidiis,  instances  this  battle  as  one  of  the  prominent  examples  of  military  tac¬ 
tics;  and  gives  the  great  conflict  in  a  new  and  interesting  dress:  “Crassus, 
Bello  Fug'tivormn  apud  Cantennam  (Catanam)  bina  castra  comminns  cum  hoa- 
tium  castria  vallavit.  Node  deinde  commotis  copiis,  manente  praetorio  in 
mnioribus  castris,  ut  fallerenuir  hostes,  ipse  omnes  copias  eduxit  et  m  radicibas 
praedidi  montis  cons'ituit;  divisoqne  cquitatu  praecepit  L.  Qnintio,  partem 
•Sparlaco  obiceret  pugnaque  eum  frustraretnr,  parte  alia  Gallos  Cermanosque  ex 
factionc  t'asti  et  Cannici  eliceret  ad  pugnam  et  fuga  simulata  deduceret,  ubi  ipse 
aclem  indruxerat:  qnoscumbarbariinsecuti  essent  equite  recedente  in  cornua, 
eubiio  ac  es  Romana  adaperta  cum  clamore  procurrlt.  XXXV  milia  armatorum 
«o  proelio  hiterfecta  cum  ipsis  ducibus  Livins  tradit,  receptas  quinque  Ro  nanas 
aquilas,  sigi:a  sex  et  XX,  multaspolia,  inter  quae  quinque  fasces  cum  securibus/- 


BATTLE  OF  PET  ELI  A.  RUINED  BY  SUCCESS.  321 


ing  the  river  Strongoli,  or  Nesethus  of  the  ancients,  and  in  the 
very  ancient  town  of  Petelia,  the  Roman  forces  under  the 
command  of  L  Quintius,  one  of  the  officers  of  Crassus  and  the 
quaestor,  Tremellius  Scrofa,  came  up  with  the  intention  only 
of  harrassing  him  in  rear  and  flank,  according  to  the  express 
orders  of  Crassus  who  adhered  to  the  Fabian  tactics.  Spar- 
tacus  on  being  attacked  by  a  few  skirmishers  in  the  rear, 
suddenly  wheeled  a  large  detachment  upon  the  Romans  who 
were  not  prepared,  and  succeeding  in  routing  them  so  com¬ 
pletely  that  the  quaestor  who  was  wounded,  barely  escaped 
with  his  ljfe.  It  was  another  great  victory. 

But  Crassus,  who  was  a  good  judge  of  effects,  soon  per¬ 
ceived  that  it  was  the  cause  of  reviving  among  the  slaves 
the  malignant  spirit  of  insubordination.  They  were  again 
so  inflated  with  success  that  they  threatened  to  rebel;  and 
their  miserable  conduct  forced  Spartacus  to  take  an  op¬ 
posite  direction  from  that  which  he  chose  to  march,  caus¬ 
ing  a  disaster  by  hurrying  them  onward  to  final  downfall. 
Plutarch  declares  that  the  insurgents  after  this  victory 
became  so  arrogant  and  mutinous  that  they  drew  swords 
and  insisted  upon  being  led  against  Crassus’  army  in  open 
field.  They  demanded  to  be  marched  through  Campania 
to  Kome ;  and  Spartacus  was  not  long  afterwards  forced 
to  give  orders  to  march  toward  the  now  trembling  capital. 
Yet  notwithstanding  this  insubordination  he  could  but 
admire  their  bravery  and  knew  their  impetuosity  when  led 
to  battle.  Plutarch  in  speaking  of  their  valor  at  the  bat¬ 
tle  of  the  seceders  where,  according  to  Livy,  no  less  than 
35,000  of  the  rebels  were  slain,  says  that  they  died  man¬ 
fully,  only  two  of  the  killed  being  found  wounded  in  the 
back.  “  The  rest  had  died  in  the  ranks,  after  the  grand¬ 
est  exhibit  of  bravery.”  Spartacus,  aware  of  the  ap¬ 
proach  of  Pompey  from  the  direction  of  Borne,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  the  expected  landing  of  Lucullus  at  Brundu- 
sium,  on  the  other,  and  knowing  the  folly  of  hope  against 
these  three  great  veteran  armies  combined,  struck  a  forced 
march  for  Brundusium,  thinking  still  to  secure  the  co¬ 
operation  of  the  privateers  in  transporting  him  to  Sicily, 
before  Lucullus  hove  in  view.  Though  he  could  rely  upon 
his  soldiers’  bravery  he  foresaw  that  a  general  engagement 
must  be  fatal. 


322 


SPARTA  CUB 


Thus  we  begin  to  conrpreliend  the  strange  reticence  of 
the  historians  regarding  the  fresh  allies  of  Crassus,  now 
actually  centering  together.  The  old  stigma  upon  the 
touch  of  a  creature  of  lowly  condition  by  an  optimate  of 
Rome  is  apparently  the  cause  of  the  suppression  of  all 
histories  which  gave  the  details.  There  is  one  authority, 
however,  which  brings  some  of  these  marvels  to  light. 
This  is  Yell e jus  Paterculus  whose  History  of  Rome  was 
early  mutilated  in  all  the  manuscripts  except  one,  which 
survived  until  it  was  printed  late  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
Armed  with  this,  we  see  better  to  follow  the  thread  of  this 
great  rebellion  to  its  close,  and  can  thus  correct  some  very 
misleading  errors  of  modern  writers. 

The  whole  army  of  the  proletaries  moved  to  the  sea¬ 
port  of  Erundusium,  where  it  was  hoped  to  obtain  ships 
and  sail  to  Sicily.  But  here  Spartacus  was  met  and  as¬ 
sailed  by  Lucullus  at  that  moment  in  the  act  of  landing 
his  whole  army,  recalled  b}^  the  senate  of  Rome  to  help 
Crassus.  Whether  much  fighting  took  place  we  are  not  in¬ 
formed;  but  foiled  again  in  his  designs  by  sea,  he  turned 
northward,  harassed  and  goaded  by  the  veteran  army 
from  Asia  in  full  force. 

In  these  returning  legions  of  Lucullus,  was  a  man  who 
was  soon  afterwards  destined  to  play  an  extraordinary 
role,  in  favor  of  the  proletaries,  and  to  lose  his  life  in 
their  defense.  It  was  Clodius,  a  brother-in-law  of  Lucul- 
1ns,  general-in-chief.  Wealthy,  of  noble  blood,  educated, 
and  one  of  the  most  eloquent  lawyers  of  those  days — a 
man  who  restored  to  the  poor  workingmen  their  right  of 
organization,  and  who  in  doing  this,  crippled  the  mighty 
Cicero  and  brought  him  to  disgrace,  exile  and  final  death. 
But  we  leave  his  extraordinary  story  for  other  pages  of 
our  history  to  recount.  Suffice  it  here  to  say  that  the  in¬ 
describable  scenes  of  suffering  and  of  horror  which  he 
was  eye  witness  to  in  this  campaign  shaped  his  life-course 
ever  afterwards,  in  favor  of  the  lowly.120 

i2or*ul)lius  Clodius  was  of  patrician  blood.  See  Lippincott’s  Biographical 
Dictionary,  Vol.  I,  art.  Clodius.  “  Demagogue  of  a  very  profligate  character  of  the 
patrician  house  of  Appius  Claudius  Pulcher;  served  in  Asia  under  Lucullus  hi* 
brother-in-law;  became  a  violent  enemy  of  Cicero  who  had  appeared  in  evidence 
against  him  ;  raised  several  bloody  riots  against  the  friends  of  Cicero  when  they 
proposed  and  passed  a  decree  for  his  restoration  B.  C.  57’*  (see  Cicero,  Pro  Milone  ; 
Lu'umann,  Geschiclde  Earns.  The  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  refusing  to  mention 
him  under  a  special  article-heading,  calls  Clodius  “  a  worthless  demagogue," 


LAST  EFFORT  TO  ESCAPE 


323 


Lucullus,  according  to  good  authority,  drove  the  gladi¬ 
ator  from  the  shipping  and  dogged  him  in  the  rear  at 
every  step.181  Pompey  was  present  with  the  whole  of  the 
large  army  which  he  had  successfully  commanded  in 
Spain.  These  facts  we  know;  for  if  we  do  not  find  men¬ 
tion  of  actual  participation  of  these  two  freshly-arrived 
Roman  generals  and  their  veteran  legions,  as  being  en¬ 
gaged  in  the  great  and  final  battle  of  Silarus,  we  certainly 
find  them  engaged  in  the  man-hunt  which  was  instituted 
on  the  same  day.  Plutarch  also  hints  at  the  fact. 

In  apparent  deference  to  Crassus,who  was  the  real  com¬ 
mander  of  the  three  combined  armies,  the  history-man- 
glers  have  evidently  seen  fit  to  trifle  with  the  truth  in 
leaving  no  mention  of  Pompey  or  of  Lucullus  in  the  last 
great  conflict.  And  especially  pointed  does  this  sugges¬ 
tion  become  when  we  take  into  consideration  that  neither 
of  these  two  generals  was  desirous  of  having  his  name 
mixed  up  with  so  disgraceful  a  thing  as  a  victory  over 
what  went  current  under  the  name  of  a  mob  of  gladiators. 

It  is  thus  made  certain  that  the  workingmen  were 
hemmed  in  between  these  three  experienced  consular  and 
veteran  armies  of  Rome,  in  a  mountain  pass  at  the  head 


while  acknowledging  that  he  “  assailed  Cicero  with  a  formal  charge  of  patting 
Oitizens  to  death  summarily  without  appeal  to  the  people,”  obtaining  a  decree 
from  the  people  for  his  banishment  400  miles  from  the  city.  Under  the  title 
“  Milo the  Pugilist  and  murderer  of  Clodius,  the  Encyclopaedia  Britann.  says: 
“P.  Clodius,  the  leader  of  the  ruffians  who  professed  the  democratic  canse  was 
his  personal  enemy,  and  their  brawls  in  the  streets  and  their  mutual  accusations 
In  the  law  courts  lasted  for  several  years  ’’  Thus  Clodius,  the  champion  of  trade 
unions  and  organized  labor  is  called  “leader  of  the  ruffians  ”  who  were  the  work¬ 
ing  people  of  Rome.  The  Lippencott  Biographical  Dictionary,  Art,  Cicero,  saya 
of  Cicero:  “His  enemy,  Clodius,  who  became  tribune  of  the  people  in  B.  C.  58, 
and  who  was  supported  by  Caesar  and  Pompey,  now  manifested  his  vindictive 
malice  against  Cicero  by  a  law  which  he  proposed:  that  whoever  has  put  to  death 
a  Roman  citizen  without  form  of  trial  shall  be  interdicted  from  fire  and  water.’* 
The  fact  that  Cicero  had  committed  such  murders  is  proved  by  the  actual  pas¬ 
sage  of  this  law  and  his  being  sent  into  exile  and  his  house  on  the  Palitinate  Hill 
publicly  burned,  thus  consummating  his  terrible  disgrace.  We  fail  to  see  in 
these  stem  measures  of  Clodius  in  punishing  murder,  and  in  upholding  the 
aged  and  respectable  law  permitting  the  organization  of  the  working  people, 
anything  that  would  not  be  considered  humane  and  respectable  in  the  highest 
degree,  if  repeated  rightin  our  own  blazing  civilization. 

121  Appian,  120,  of  book  I.  says  :....“  Honngiov,  irdvra  rpoirov  fjretydpevcK 
iirexeipei  t<Z  hnapraKco,  hull  6  X/rapra/co s,  tov  Ho/urijcor  irpoXa/8eZv  a£iiov,  if  trvr&rjicat 
top  Kpacrcov  npovKaKelro-  xnrepopd>p.evof  6’  vn’  avrov  8ta/civSvveveiv  re  eyvw,  koX 
wapovrcov  oi  tS)v  imreiav  rjSr)  djeraro  jravri  rtZ  o-TpartZ  Sta  row  jreptretxto'/xaTos,  teat  e<f>vyer 
ini  BpevTe'crtov  Kpacraov  Siuncovrof.  uif  Se  icai  Aev/coAAov  epaSev  6  X/rapra/cos  es  t4 
Bpevre'crtov,  ano  r^s  in i  MidpiSaTjj  vt/cijs  eTravtovra,  etvat,  ndvrinv  a7royvovs  if  \eipat 
pet  T<p  Kpacrcrtp  pe Ta  ttoAAov  /ca  t  tots  nXg-dovf  yevo/te'vijs  8e  rrjf  pdxrjf  pa/epas  r« 
icai  /caprepas  cos  ev  d7royvcocret  ToatovSe  pvptaScov,  Ttrpcocr/ceTai  es  tov  p.rjpbu  6  'Snap- 
ra/cos  Soparup,  /cat  <n/y/capi//as  to  yovu  /cat  7rpo/3aAu/v  tiji v  daniSa  irpog  tovs  int-ovras 
awepaxeTO,  pe'xot  /cat  avrof  /cat  iro\i>  nhrj&Of  apt/)’  avrov  /cv/cAwdeVres  ineaov," 


524 


SP  ART  AC  US. 


waters  of  the  river  Silarus.  It  is  also  certain  that  Spar* 
tacus,  if  not  his  whole  army,  now  knew  perfectly  well  that 
the  doom  was  near;  they  had  by  this  time  all  become  fren¬ 
zied  for  the  approaching  butchery. 

As  one  of  the  most  bloody  and  terrible  battles  the  world 
has  ever  known  was  fought  here,  it  is  fitting  to  pause  in 
order  to  minutely  describe  the  scenes  and  to  array  our 
evidence,  obtained  with  great  difficulty,  regarding  the 
numbers  of  the  contestants,  the  date  of  the  battle  and  the 
carnage  during  its  rage,  and  afterwards  during  the  man¬ 
hunt  instituted  by  the  Romans — the  whole  constituting 
a  cruel  and  awfully  bloody  page  not  to  be  found  in  the 
annals  of  history,  and  which  to  the  people  at  large,  and 
even  to  the  students  of  our  universities,  must  be  regarded 
as  a  chapter  of  news. 

There  were  in  the  combined  armies  of  Crassus,  Pom- 
pey  and  Lucullus,  undoubtedly  more  than  400,000  men, 
most  of  whom  were  experienced  veterans,  thoroughly 
hardened  to  the  combat  and  to  all  the  rigors  of  the  mili¬ 
tary  camp.122 

In  addition  to  the  significant  words  of  Florus  regard¬ 
ing  Rome  and  her  massing  the  entire  force  against  the  in¬ 
surgents,  we  have  the  auxiliary  argument  of  reason 
which  shows  that  it  could  not  possibly  have  been  other¬ 
wise  ;  for  evidence  is  not  wanting  that  the  force  of  Spar- 
tacus  at  the  battle  of  Silarus,  was  no  less  than  300,000 
strong.  His  army  which  at  the  battle  of  Picenum  is  ac¬ 
knowledged  by  Appian  to  have  been  120,000  in  number, 
by  some  unrecorded  means  which  we  conjecture  to  have 
been  the  collusion  and  co-operation  of  the  privateers 
bringing  men  from  Sicily,  had  grown  to  the  imposing 
total  of  300,000.  Vellejus  tells  us  this,  in 128  honest  fig- 

122  The  conjecture  that  there  were  400, COO  soldiers  in  the  combined  Reman 
army  at  the  battle  of  Silarus  is  not  based  upon  circumstantial  evidence.  Florus, 
whose  words  are  never  regarded  with  distrust,  tells  us  distinctly  that  alter  the 
destruction  of  Lentulus  and  Poplicoia,  and  the  humiliating  retaliation  by  Sparta- 
cur,  of  the  gladiatorial  combat  in  honor  of  Crixus,  the  fallen  comrade,  these 
words:  “Then,  indeed  they  (the  Romans),  with  their  entire  powers  massed, 
bore  down  upon  the  gladiator.  Tandem  etiarn  totis  imperii  viribus  contra  mir- 
millionem  eonsurgetur.’’  Accordingly  we  find  the  Romans  soon  sending  post¬ 
haste  for  all  the  old  veteran  armies;  one  of  which  was  in  Spain  victorious  over 
the  powerful  Sertori  us,  and  the  other  in  Asia,  equally  triumphant  over  Mith- 
radtes.  All  surged  together  against  Spartacus.  See  Florus,  Annales,  III.  20. 

iaa  Our  accident  al  discovery  of  this  invaluable  information  may  be  worth  re¬ 
lating:  The  unreasouable  figure  ol  40,000  given  in  our  own  version  of  Vellejus, 
in  view  of  the  great  combiued  forces  admitted  by  Plutarch,  Appian  and  Fiona 


TEE  GARBLED  HISTORY, 


325 


ares;  although  they  have  been  garbled  by  a  merciless 
translator  and  made  to  read  40,000.  This  cheat  would 
have  actually  prevailed  but  for  the  accident  already  men¬ 
tioned,  of  the  preservation  of  a  MSS.  copy  from  which  the 
editio  prineeps  was  printed  soon  after  the  invention  of 
that  art,  and  a  copy  of  which  is  still  to  be  seen  at  the 
Vatican.124 

Supplied  with  these  important  figures,  so  long  held  back, 
but  so  perfectly  reasonable — since  they  straighten  out  the 
incongruities  which  meet  the  reader  who  sees  the  vast 
multitudes  of  the  Roman  legions  positively  known  to  be 
now  centering  in — we  find  ourselves  in  a  condition,  other¬ 
wise  crippled  in  absurdities  and  discrepancies,  to  make  a 
better  description  of  the  contest. 

Time  was  given  for  the  army  of  Spartacus  to  make  long 

•gainst  Spartacus  led  us  to  suspect  that  an  immense  error  lurked  in  the  history 
of  the  battle  of  Silarus.  Ransacking  for  more  light  we  ran  against  the  reference 
to  Dr.  Schambach’s  Italischer  Sklavenkrieg ,  which  we  procured  from  Europe  after 
much  delay.  Page  11,  Quellen  zur  Geschichte  has  the  following:  “  Vellejus  ist  fur 
nns  wenig  wichtig.  Wir  erfahren  durcli  ihu  nichts,  das  uns  nicht  auch  sonat  be- 
kannt  ware,  mit  Ausnahme  der  Zahlenangabe,  dass  von  300,000  Sklaven  in  deni 
letzten  Kampi'e  noch  40,000  iibrig  gewesen  eeien.  In  dem  Wenigen,  was  er  gibt. 
liisst  sich  ihm  eine  Unricktigkeit  nicht  nachweisen.”  This  not  only  explained 
the  reasonable  facts,  but  also  vouched  for  the  truthfulness  of  Vallejus.  Setting 
out  afresh  on  the  hunt  for  the  exact  words  of  the  editio prineeps,  we  at  last  found 
•  copy  of  the  Lugdunum  edition  containing  the  MSS.  text  in  a  note. 

124  During  and  before  the  renaissance  there  appears  to  have  been  a  not  in¬ 
considerable  dispute  among  scholars  over  the  figure  CCC,  millia ,  to  be  seen  in 
the  editio prineeps  of  Vallejus,  on  account  of  this  figure  having  been  altered  to 
XL.  millia.  We  therefore  give  the  rendering  with  its  falsified  figure,  and  follow 
it  with  the  remarks  of  the  Lugdunum  editor  written  some  2Qp  years  ago,  together 
with  the  perfectly  trustworthy  quotation  from  the  editio  prineeps  Vellejus,  in¬ 
terpolated  by  a  fraud,  is  currently  made  to  say  these  words  about  Spartacus. 

“  Fugitivi  e  ludo  gladiatorio  Capua  profugientes,  duce  Spartaco,  raptis  ex  ea 
urbe  gladiis;  mox,  crescente  in  dies  multitudiue,  gravibus  variisque  casibus  ad- 
fecere  Italiam  quorum  numerus  in  tantum  adolevit,  ut  qua  ultimo  (limicavere 
acie,  XL.  millia  (in  the  original  manuscript  written  by  Vallejus  himself  CCC. 
millia)  horn  in  um  se  Romano  exercitui  opposuerunt.” 

The  remarks  of  John  Campbell  upon  this  interpolation  are  given  in  a  note, 
very  guardedly,  as  follows: 

“  Ut  nihil  hie  mutandumputem,  facit  maxima scriptorum  dissentio.  Quorum 
In  hoc  numero  diversitatem  scire  qui  desideret  adeat  eruditissium  Treinshemium 
ad  Flori  liberum  III.  cap.  20,  Vossiug.”  Farther  on,  same  note:  “  XL.  Alii  hunc 
numerum  plurimum  augent.  Inter  quos  is  qui  minimum  est  Eutropius.  Hie 
sexaginta  millia  virornm  abiiscollectafuissescribit.  Apianns  vero  ad  C.  ac  XX. 
millia  extendit.  Orosius,  Livii  epitomator,  medium  tenuisse  videntur.  Itaque 
vix  ambigo,  quin  in  Vellejio  fit  XC.  Millia  hominum  Vossius.  Nimis  exiguus 
numerus,  in  quo  variant  scriptOreB,  Prineeps  Editio ,  CCO.  millia  homnum  “  Signed 
Heinaiua. 

In  the  Hudson  edition  (Oxanise),  the  text  is  the  same  as  above;  but  the  note 
regarding  Heins  is  quoted  as  follows:  Note  5;  “  XC.  legendum  esse  non  ambiguit 
Voss.  An  XC.  ant  C.  millia  hominum  scribendum  dubitat  Heins,  QUIA  EDITIO 
PRINCEPS  CCC.  MILLIA  HA J SET  HOMINUM.” 

This  is  sufficiently  positive  to  settle  the  number  of  the  army  of  Spartacus  at 
the  battle  of  Silarus,  at  300  000  men.  because  it  is  the  same  wording  of  Vellejus 
hlmse.lt  who  lived  near  the  very  spot  aud  whose  father  probably  commanded  e 
division  of  cavalry  at  th  ■  battle. 


826 


SP AMT  AC  US. 


marches  westward  toward  Rome,  in  obedience  to  the  de¬ 
mands  of  liis  mutinous  soldiers.  A  straight  cut  from 
Brundusium  to  the  battle-field  could  not  have  been  less 
than  100  miles;  as  it  waa  on  the  head  waters  of  the  Si- 
larus  in  a  nearly  direct  line  from  that  seaport  and  Rome. 
As  we  have  evidence  of  his  ha\ing  been  repulsed  by  Lu- 
cullus  at  Brundusium,  we  can  understand  how  he  was 
followed  by  him  all  along  this  march.  Crassus  likewise, 
if  not  in  the  act  of  constantly  provoking  him,  as  we  are 
inclined  to  suspect,  was  in  the  mountain  pass  of  the  Si- 
larus  when  he  arrived  and  pitched  camp  by  its  side. 

The  combined  hostile  armies  now  lay  over  against  each 
other  for  a  considerable  time.  Fortifications  were  drawn 
by  both  and  the  activities  on  the  Roman  side,  of  center¬ 
ing  in,  were  given  both  time  and  force.  We  now  find 
the  two  contestants  face  to  face,  each  tempting  the  other 
to  make  the  first  dash.  It  was,  according  to  Dr.  Scham- 
bach’s  estimate — which  we  adopt  as  the  most  accurate — as 
late  as  February  of  the  year  70  before  Christ.  The  war 
had  been  raging  about  four  years.  But  although  winter, 
it  is  not  in  our  power  to  know  whether  it  was  cold  weather. 
Probably  not ;  for  the  winters  are  generally  mild  in  these 
portions  of  Italy.125 

One  day  Crassus  ordered  his  soldiers  to  dig  a  trench 
and  while  thus  engaged  the  gladiators  made  an  advance, 
upon  them.  It  proved  the  commencement  of  the  great 
battle.126  From  a  simple  skirmish  both  armies  gradually 
closed  into  the  deadly  fray  and  the  combat  became  more 
and  more  furious.  They  eagerly  welcomed  the  battle  with 
reckless  feelings  of  despair,  knowing  that  their  hour  had 
come,  yet  staking  their  hopes  upon  another  great  and  de¬ 
cisive  victoiy.127 

Heroism,  love  of  conflict,  intrepidity  and  fearlessness 


125  Plutarch,  Crassus,  mentions  severe  coldness  a  month  or  two  before  when 
Spartaeus  ran  the  blockade  in  Bhegium.  But  that  was  a  night  squall.  Besides 
the  battle  of  Silarus  occurred  near  the  opening  spring.  This  agrees  with  Scham- 
bach,  S.  13. 

126  Plutarch,  idem,  12.  *  Crassus  therefore  hastened  to  give  that  stroke  him¬ 
self,  and  with  the  same  view,  encamped  very  near  the  enemy.  One  day,  when 
he  had  ordered  his  soldiers  to  dig  a  french,  the  gladiators  attacked  them  as  they 
were  at  work.  Numbers  came  up  continually  on  both  sides  to  support  the  com¬ 
batants;  and  at  last  Spartaeus  seeing  what  the  case  necessarily  required,  drew 
out  his  whole  army.”  Trans,  of  Langhome. 

127  La  Rousse,  Dic^'nnaire  Univers tl,  speaking  of  the  gladiator  says: 
troupe  6tait  afl'ol6e  d*.  siicce^e.” 


TWELFTH  BATTLE.  SILARUS. 


327 


of  death  were  frenziedly  seated  on  their  hearts;  but  until 
now,  recklessness  had  been  a  stranger  in  the  camps  of 
Spartacus;  and  when  this  came,  foreknelling  the  desper¬ 
ate  ultimatum,  all  mutually  realized  the  approach  of  dis¬ 
solution  and  were  ready  to  drink  the  intoxicating  potion 
which  brave  men  taste  midst  the  furious  lunge  of  steel. 

Thus  a  skirmish  between  the  advance  guards  of  both 
armies  brought  on  the  general  engagement.  Spartacus 
who  was  goaded  by  a  hatred  of  the  Roman  leader,  for 
some  time  stood  off  at  a  distance,  eyeing  the  contest. 
Brigade  after  brigade  fell  into  the  murderous  vortex.  At 
length  Spartacus  issued  his  general  order  of  battle  and  at 
the  ring  of  his  war  clarions  the  two  angry  armies  closed 
up  bringing  on  the  ferocious  conflict.128  They  brought 
their  chieftain  his  horse  ;  but  the  gladiator,  like  Warwick, 
drew  from  its  sheath  his  sword  and  with  one  blow  of  his 
strong  arm,  killed  the  excited  steed ;  then  shouting  on¬ 
ward  to  his  men,  uttered  the  farewell  speech  of  Spartacus 
to  his  soldiers.  w  Victorious  I  shall  find  horses  in  plenty 
among  the  enemy;  defeated  I  shall  no  longer  want  one.” 
Then  poising  himself  he  rushed  for  Crassus  with  his  steel 
high  in  air  and  fell  upon  the  ranks  of  his  adversary  in 
personal  combat.  “  It  was  a  fierce  struggle.  Long  after 
the  victory  was  hopeless  Spartacus  was  traced  by  heaps 
of  the  slain  who  had  fallen  by  his  hand,  and  his  body  was 
lost  completely  in  the  awful  carnage  which  closed  that 
day  of  blood.”  129  Plutarch  says  that  he  aimed  to  kill13* 
Crassus  ;  and  toward  this  mark  through  darts  and  jave¬ 
lins  he  pressed,  and  over  windrows  of  the  dead,  rushing 
in  quest  of  his  foe,  whom,  indeed  he  did  not  reach,  but 
he  killed  two  of  his  centurians.  When  all  who  made  with 
him  this  mad  and  desperate  plunge  had  fled  or  fallen,  the 
terrible  gladiator  remained  fighting  with  unflinching  gal¬ 
lantry  until  he  fell,  covered  with  many  wounds  and  so 
completely  cut  to  pieces  that  his  body  was  never  found. 
Even  Florus  who  had  no  language  sufficiently  bitter  with 
which  to  malign  him.  says  “  he  died  like  a  Roman  em- 

128  Appian,  T.  120;  “  Tevop.errj<;  Se  r/j?  Max7??  /aa/epa?  re  «cai  /caprcp ac  ip  awvy 
TUKret.  Toawi'Se  iJ.vptd.8mv,  nTpci/T/cerai  e?  iov  p.t)p'ovo  IndpraKOS  Soparitp,  *ai  crvy/cap.. 
i//a?  to  yovv  /cal  irpoiSatymv  Tt)v  acrni&a  7rpos  rovs  eir tovrag  direp.d\fTO,  fie\pi  /cal  avr&C 
icai  7roAu  7rA*)t?oc  a/u<f>’  av/rbi'  /cv/cAwi^ei/re?  eireo’ov.” 

129  Smith  s  Dictionary  of  Greek  and  Roman  Biography,  Art.  Spartacus. 

130  Plutarch,  Crassus,  12. 


328 


SPARTACUS. 


^eror.” 181  His  forces  appear  to  have  fought  manfully  un¬ 
til  the  death  of  their  leader,  when  the  lines  gave  way  and 
a  hideous  carnage  followed.  The  Romans  gave  no 
quarter.  Sixty  thousand  workingmen  fell  in  this  glorious 
defeat — glorious  in  the  appreciation  of  all  who  admire 
feats  of  sublimest  valor ;  but  alas,  a  defeat  which  for  cen¬ 
turies  riveted  the  chains  of  the  servile  race. 

We  paraphrase  Appian  for  the  following,  on  the  close 
and  consequence  of  this  terrible  scene:  The  butchery  by 
the  Romans  surpassed  the  power  of  counting,  for  it  cov¬ 
ered  many  thousands.  The  body  of  Spartacus  lay  dead 
on  the  field.  Great  numbers  fled  to  the  mountains  after 
the  battle,  and  Crassus  pursued  them.  They,  however, 
reorganizing  themselves  into  four  divisions  fought  back, 
until  all  were  destroyed  except  6,000  who  were  crucified 
upon  the  high-road  from  Capua  to  Rome. 

These  w  many  thousands  ”  slaves  who  escape  d  to  the 
mountains  as  here  reported  by  Appian  were  the  40,000  of 
Vellejus,  in  his  editio  princeps  which  we  have  used  on  the 
assurance  of  Dr.  Schambach.132  This  would  make  the  num¬ 
ber  of  men  who  fell  in  the  battle  after  and  before  the 
death  of  their  leader  and  including  the  carnage  of  the 
route,  when  no  man  was  spared  and  no  quarter  given,  to 
foot  up  260,000 — an  immense  number — but  when  we  re¬ 
flect  that  there  raged  an  internecine  spirit  breathing  only 
vengeance  and  void  of  feeling  throughout  the  great  Roman 
army,  and  contemplate  the  possible  strokes  of  such  swords¬ 
men,  under  orders  to  exterminate  their  now  defenseless 
victims,  these  numbers  are  not  surprising. 

A  few  more  words  and  the  tragedy  is  told.  Such  were 
the  numbers  of  the  brave  veterans  of  this  great  revolt  who 
fell  in  the  gigantic  contest  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Si- 
larus.133  In  the  mountains,  during  the  pursuit  great  num- 

181  “  Spartacus  ipse  in  primo  agmine  fortissime  dimicans,  quasi  Imperator. 
occisus  est.”  (Floras,  liber  III.  cap.  20). 

132  Heinsius  distinctly  says  that  Vellejus  put  the  number  of  the  army  of 
Spartacus  at  300,000,  from  which  total  40  000  escaped;  “  qua  editio  princeps  habet 
XL.  e  CCC.  millia  hominum.”  So  Schambach  in  Der  Italische  Sklavenaufstand,  S. 

11,  Quellen  zur  Cfeschichte,  says:  “  Wirerfahren  von  Vellejus - dass  von  300,000 

Bklaven  in  dem  letzten  Kampfe  noch  40,000  ilbrig  gewesen  seien.”  The  two  ac¬ 
counts  of  Appian  and  Vellejus  Paterculus  do  not  at  all  disagree.  Appian,  I.  idevr. 
**  *0  re  A.oi7rds  avrov  arparos  cucocrpurs  rjdnj  KareKOirrovTO  Kara  irAfjilos,  <*>s  <j>6rov  yevt- 
vda i  Tali'  per  ovS’  evapidpgrov  ‘Pwjaatwv  8$  is  avSpas,  nal  rbv  Sirapraicov 

vinvv  ov\  evpidyvai.  no\v  S’  ere  jrAljilo?  7jV  iv  rols  opeaiv,  in  Tys  pix1!*  6ia<f>vy6v 

ovs  o  Kpaaoos  avefiaivet'-” 

133  For  a  description  of  the  Silaras  and  the  snrroonding  region  see  Strabo, 

Geographic  a,  V.  cap  4. 


BATTLE  OF  SILARUS.  THE  MAN-HUNT.  329 


bers  more  fell,  and  6,000  were  taken  prisoners  of  war. 
The  remainder  of  the  great  army  who  after  the  defeat, 
and  the  death  of  their  beloved  and  faithful  leader,  en¬ 
deavored  to  escape,  was  indeed  small. 

According  to  Appian,  the  pursuit  was  made  by  Pompey 
who  must  have  participated  in  the  battle.  This  grasping 
egotist  easily  finished  the  massacre  and  then  vaunted  that 
he  had  been  the  principle  in  putting  down  the  rebellion; 
thus  adding  to  the  proof  that  all  the  three  Roman  armies 
were  massed.  Great  numbers  of  the  fugitives  were  over¬ 
taken  and  crucified.  Every  one  of  the  6,000  who  fell  pris¬ 
oners  at  the  battle  of  Silarus  and  in  the  mountains  was 
hung  on  the  cross  along  the  Appian  way ;  and  for  months 
their  bodies  dangled  there  to  delight  the  vengeance-lov¬ 
ing  gentry  who,  on  their  drives  to  and  from  the  cities  of 
Rome  and  Capua,  rejoiced  to  behold  such  sights  as  in  our 
time  would  provoke  the  shame  and  contempt  of  the  world. 

Slavery  from  the  downfall  of  Spartacus,  the  last  eman¬ 
cipator,  had  an  unhindered  sweep  in  Rome  and  her  prov¬ 
inces  until  Jesus,  100  years  later,  founded  or  brought  into 
the  open  world  the  culture  of  the  communes  hitherto 
compulsorily  secret,  that  mankind  at  birth  are  naturally 
free  and  equal — a  culture  which  is  based  upon  peace  and 
submission;  the  antithesis  of  the  plans  of  Eunus,  Athe- 
nion,  Spartacus  and  all  revolters.  This  plan  was  original 
in  Jesus,  and  it  has  prevailed;  for  chattel  ownership  of 
man  by  man  has,  under  his  open  culture,  disappeared  from 
the  earth.  Rome  became  u  a  model  of  rapacity,  dishonesty 
and  fraud;  having  in  her  period — almost  a  thousand 
years,  produced  scarcely  a  dozen  men  whose  names  have 
descended  to  posterity  with  an  untarnished  fame.”134 

But  if  Spartacus,  whose  acts  were  in  Italy,  might  be 
called  a  Roman,  he  certainly  may  be  included  in  the  list 
of  names  of  the  untarnished  famous ;  for  his  nature  was 
gentle  though  his  character  was  marked  and  equal  to  the 
dignity  of  grander  victories  than  came  into  the  list  of  the 
Scipios  or  the  Caesars — since  he  fought  entirely  for  a  prin¬ 
ciple,  dying  as  his  wife  had  predicted  of  him,  happy  in 
the  enthusiasm  of  an  exuberant,  manly  swoop  of  nerve 
and  muscle,  grand,  if  not  gigantic,  amid  the  dismaying 
fury  of  enemies  of  liberty  and  of  law. 

13<  Carey,  Principles  of Political  Economy ,  Vol.  I.  p.  247. 


330 


SPAR  TAG  US. 


Immediately  after  the  destruction  of  Spartacns  and  his 
army,  another  great  man-hunt  was  instituted,  similar  to 
those  we  have  described  in  the  chapters  on  Viriathus, 
Eunus  and  Athenion.  It  lasted  six  months,  raged  with 
merciless  atrocities  and  was  followed  by  another  exter¬ 
minatory  man-hunt  against  ihe  pirates  who,  if  we  are  to 
believe  the  histories  which  have  been  permitted  to  survive, 
were  the  true  friends  of  the  Romans,  because  they  treach¬ 
erously  refused  to  assist  the  insurgent  army  to"  cross  into 
Sicily.  But  as  we  have  already  stated,  this  story  looks  ex¬ 
tremely  flimsy  and  must  be  considered  with  caution;  as 
the  fact  remains  well  vouched  for  that  Rome  fell  upon  the 
pirates  and  privateers  with  a  powerful  fleet  commanded  by 
Pompey  himself  and  succeeded  in  less  than  a  year,  in  anni¬ 
hilating  them  so  completely  that  ever  afterwards  the  Med¬ 
iterranean  was  cleared  of  these  maritime  desperadoes.1*8 

No  fewer  than  1,000,000  slaves  are  reported  by  Caecilius 
Calactenus  to  have  been  crucified  and  otherwise  slain  in 
the  combined  wars  of  the  slaves  who  rebelled  against  the 
huge  and  inhuman  slave  system  of  the  Romans.  This  es¬ 
timate,  repeated  with  reserve  by  Dr.  Schambach,1*6  comes 
to  us  not  from  Calactenus  direct,  for  his  valuable  histor¬ 
ies  are,  like  the  others,  lost;  but  it  is  transmitted  indirectly 
by  Athenaeus,  whose  quotations  from  the  lost  books  are 
more  and  more  highly  prized. 

But  alas !  Of  what  utility  were  all  these  outbreaks  of 
human  irascibility  with  their  awful  details  of  blood  and 
extermination?  True,  one  comfort  clings:  To  die  in  the 
desperate  attempt  for  freedom  was  better  than  to  live  in 
the  griping  coils  of  slavery.  But  “  an  eye  for  an  eye  and 
a  tooth  for  a  tooth  ”  brought  no  relief  for  downtrodden 
humanity.  It  never  has,  it  never  can,  it  never  will.  The 
still  lingering  idea  of  a  semi-belligerent  force  organized  on 
the  strike  plan,  so  long  as  it  does  not  choose  the  weapons 

13&  For  the  law  commissioning  Pompey  to  the  work  of  exterminating  the  pi 
rates,  see  Vellejus,  Historia  Rtmana,  liber  II.  cap.  xxxi.;  and  for  a  description 
of  the  work  itself,  Appian,  I.  121  ;  Pliny,  Historia  Naturalis,  VII.  26 ;  Tacitus, 
Annales,  XII.  62;  XV.  25,  Bcllum  Piraticum. 

136  Schambach,  ItaLischer  Sklavenauf stand.  S.  6.  “Die  Zahl  aller in diesen  und 
anderen  minder  bedeutenden  Oder  uns  zufallig  nicht  iiberlieferten  Aufstanden 
getodteteu  Sklaven  giebt  Athen.,  wahrsoheinlich  nacli  der  ubertriebenen  Berech- 
nung  dos  Cacilius  von  Kalakteauf  etwa  eine  Million  an.5’  These  doubts  regard* 
Ing  the  number  would  have  been  dispelled  had  the  learned  doctor  reflected  that 
the  number  cf  lives  lost  in  the  war  of  Spartacus  alone  exceeded  half  that  sum, 
A  quarter  of  a  million  of  slaves  were  killed  in  the  last  battle  and  in  the  man-hunt 
which  followed.  No  doubt  several  millions  were  killed  in  all 


TEE  LESSON  TO  HUMANITY. 


331 


of  overt  war,  and  sedulously  abstains  from  military  or 
other  violent  means  of  resistance  and  self-defense,  may  be 
in  conformity  with  the  reasonable  methods  of  relief;  it  is 
unquestionably  consistent  with  the  modern  age  and  yields 
the  rough  polemic  and  the  intellectual  jar  wdiieh  surges 
and  jostles  men  into  a  conception  of  arbitration  and  poli¬ 
tical  unanimity.  But  humanity  in  the  awful  and  relent¬ 
less  conflicts  we  have  described,  of  which  this  revolt  of 
Spartacus  was  the  last  and  the  typical  example,  has  had 
enough  of  the  destructive,  enough  of  the  irascible,  enough 
of  extermination.  Let  us  profit  by  these  examples,  and  no 
longer  remain  regardless  of  the  better  and  more  promis¬ 
ing  plan  of  another  master,  and  the  next  to  succeed. 
This  great  preceptor  constantly  taught  the  working  peo¬ 
ple  “that  they  resist  not  evil;”  and  his  are  the  precepts 
prevailing  all  through  the  civilizing  inculcation  of  tt  good 
for  evil,”  until,  after  a  bi-millennial  trial  of  the  brutal  in- 
st'ncts,  the  oppressor  now  perceives  and  is  being  con¬ 
strained  to  acknowledge  that  “an  injury  to  one  is  the 
concern  of  all.” 

Whoever  has  the  curiosity  to  observe  the  results  of 
these  defeats  upon  the  Roman  people  will  find  that  all  the 
blood  that  was  shed  had  no  influence  wdiatever  toward 
refining  human  feelings.  About  this  time  the  amphithe¬ 
atre  began  in  earnest  to  supersede  the  older  games  of  the 
Roman  circus.  The  revolts  had  kindled  up  a  fresh  spirit 
of  vengeance,  and  popular  conversation  inflamed  the  hid¬ 
eous  passion  for  sights  in  the  gladiatorial  ring. 

These  revolts  had  moreover  taught  the  Roman  politic¬ 
ians  and  all  those  who  catered  to  power,  that  the  slave 
system  which  made  bondsmen  of  prisoners  of  war  taken  by 
tens  of  thousands  in  the  great  conquests  of  the  past  hun¬ 
dred  years,  were  a  desperate  and  dangerous  element  in 
the  land.  But  a  people  filled  with  grudges  as  were  the 
Romans,  after  this  terrible  succession  of  revolts  which 
have  been  described,  could  think  of  no  mild,  humane 
methods  of  getting  rid  of  the  dangerous  slaves. 

To  see  them  thrown  to  the  wild  beasts  and  eaten  alive 
or  to  train  them  for  the  ghastly  habit  of  cutting  each 
others’  throats  u  on  the  sands  of  an  amphitheatre,  was 
to  their  truly  ferocious  character  tbe  natural  way  of  get¬ 
ting  rid  of  them.  This  in  part  answers  the  inquirer  a 


332 


SPARTACUS. 


question  as  to  the  cause  of  the  rapid  and  phenomenal  de¬ 
cline  of  morals  at  Rome. 

The  comparatively  innocent  circus  waned  in  favor  of 
the  arena.  Vast  amphitheatres  were  constructed  in  towns 
and  cities  everywhere.  Blood-money  reigned  triumphant. 


CHAPTER  XTTT. 

ORGANIZATION. 

ROME’S  ORGANIZED  WORKING  MEN  AND  WOMEN. 

Organization  of  the  Fkeedmen — The  Jus  Coeundi — Roman  Unions 
— The  Collegium — Its  Power  and  Influence — What  the 
Poor  did  with  their  Dead — Cremation — Burial  a  Divine  Right 
which  they  were  too  Lowly  to  Practice — Worship  of  bor¬ 
rowed  Gods — Incineration  or  Burial  and  Trade  Unions  com¬ 
bined — Proofs — Glance  at  the  Inner  social  Life  of  the  ancient 
Brotherhoods — State  Ownership  and  Management — Nation¬ 
alized  Lands — Number  and  Variety  of  Trade  Unions — Strug¬ 
gles — Numa  Pompilius  First  to  Recognize  and  Uphold  Trade 
Unions — Law  of  the  12  Tables  taken  from  Solon — Harmony, 
Peace,  Ease,  steady  Work,  Prosperity  and  Plenty  Lasting 
with  little  Interruption  for  500  Years — Bondmen  fared  worse. 

We  have  spoken  of  certain  organizations  among  the  work¬ 
ing  people  of  ancient  times.  That  these  existed  is  no  longer 
denied.  In  Rome  they  were  mostly  freedmen.  But  what 
inspired  their  combination  into  secret  orders  does  not  ap¬ 
pear  plain  to  those  who  study  the  past  for  the  sake  of  grati¬ 
fying  a  taste  for  great  events.  Neither  do  those  who  study 
it  for  purposes  of  gleaning  points  in  philosophy  and  religion 
as  commonly  understood,  obtain  any  correct  idea  of  them. 
The  ancient  contempt  rooted  in  the  taint  of  labor  which 
slavery  inspired  is  yet  too  strong;  and  there  still  lingers 
too  much  of  the  old  spirit  of  paganism  to  allow  of  interest, 
or  hardly  of  curiosity.  This  must  answer  the  astonished 
student  of  sociology  who  asks  why  so  much  ignorance  on 
the  subject  of  those  ancient  societies. 

Agaiu,  we  have  alluded,  in  a  previous  chapter,  to  the  fact 
that  writers  and  speakers  of  those  days  were  extremely 


334 


OROANIZA  T10N. 


cLfiry  of  information  regarding  them.  The  cause  of  this 
was  identical  with  that  which  inspires  the  same  thing  here 
amongst  us  now — disdain.  From  1870  until  1886,  a  pe¬ 
riod  of  sixteen  years,  little  was  known  to  the  masses  of  society 
of  the  vast  organization  amidst  us,  down  in  society’s  core, 
except  that  now  and  then  a  strike,  like  a  volcanic  eruption, 
shook  the  moral  and  financial  surface.  Yet  in  that  period 
the  most  splendid  vehicles  of  knowledge  ever  before  known, 
existed.  There  was  an  organized  policy,  mixed  with  con¬ 
tempt,  silently  preventing  even  a  wayside  mention  of  these 
phenomena.  When  m  1886,  a  decided  stand  taken  by  Mr. 
Powderly,  pleasing  the  press  which  may  have  expected  to 
see  defeat  and  disaster  of  the  great  collectivity,  flung  the 
door  of  the  mighty  dungeon  ajar,  and  a  knowledge  of  their 
numbers  and  power  burst  out,  the  people  were  overwhelmed 
with  surprise.  How  much  easier  then,  was  it,  in  that  bar¬ 
baric  age,  without  mechanical  means  of  transmitting  truth, 
even  had  historians,  poets  and  philosophers  been  inclined 
to  do  so,  to  close  the  doors  against  curiosity  and  the  love  of 
learning.1 

We  begin  by  the  broad  statement  that  from  the  earliest 
times  at  wnich  anything  is  known  of  them,  although  they 
were  sunk  in  ineffable  contumely,  they  yet  enjoyed  one  boon 
— the  right  of  combination.  Strange  to  say,  no  conspiracy 
laws  are  to  be  found;  at  any  rate  among  the  Romans,8  un¬ 
til  about  the  time  of  the  emperors.*  These  rights  of  organ¬ 
ization  in  very  ancient  times,  extended  all  over  Europe  so 
far  as  is  known,4  Some  of  the  first  gleamings  of  this  may 
be  gotten  from  the  authors.  As  early  as  Numa  Pompilius* 

1  Mommsen,  De  Collegiis  et  Sodalidis  Romanorum,  p.  31.  “  Si  qumrimus  da 
loco  collegiis  opificum  in  rebus  pubiicis  apud  Romanos  concesso.  Sed  id  ipsum 
queeritur,  an  quserere  liceat:  est  enim  altissimum  de  hac  re  apud  auctores  silen- 
tiurn.”  Here  Mommsen  admits  that  the  profoundest  silence  reigns  among 
authors,  in  regard  to  these  unions,  and  refers  for  his  proof  to  a  stone  (videOrell. 
Inscr.  4,105)  bearing  an  insription  of  a  union.  This  was  a  union  of  musicians  that 
existed  at  Rome.  The  inscription  runs  thus:  “M.  Julius  Victor,  ex  collegio 
Liticinum  Cornicinum.”  Mommsen  alludes  to  this  find  in  proof  of  tha  fact  that 
working  people  had  organized  Unions 'of  musicians. 

8  In  page  52  of  the  Consular  report  ol  Mr.  James  T.  Dubois,  U.  8.  Consul  at 
Leipzig,  published  by  the  State  Department  in  1885,  at  Washington,  there  U  a 
reference  to  the  attempted  suppression  by  TuRius  Hostilius  of  the  Collegia  Opi¬ 
ficum  ;  but  that  they  continued  to  thrive  he  acknowleges  in  the  next  paragraph. 
A  close  inspection  shows  that  they  were  by  no  means  stippressed. 

*  Mommsen,  De  Col.  el  Sodal.  Ramanorum,  cap.  iv.  §10,  p.  73. 

*  Gruter,  Inscriptiones  Antiquce  Totius  Orbis  Romenorum ,  399,4.  431, 1.  "On*, 
nia  corpora  Lugduni  licite  coeuntia.”  Cicero,  Pro  Sexto ,  14,  32,  says:  “  Thert 
was  no  town  in  Italy,  no  colony ,  no  prefecture,  no  board  of  tax  collectors  at  Rome, 
no  trade  union,  not  holding  common  cause  with  one  another.”  This  was  during 
his  struggle  to  suppress  them. 


NUMA'S  TRADE  UNION  CATEGORIES.  335 


time,  perhaps  700  years  before  Christ,  they  are  known  to 
have  existed  in  great  numbers.  This  king  tolerated  them  ; 
and  there  exist  some  curious  data  respecting  the  system 
which  he  invented  for  their  regulation.5 6  He  ordered  that 
the  eutire  people  including  the  working  classes,  be  distri¬ 
buted  into  eleven  guilds.  This  statement  of  Plutarch  is 
however  regarded  by  Mommsen  as  incorrect.  The  latter, 
after  investigating  the  data  given  anterior  to  Plutarch,  con¬ 
cludes  that  it  must  have  been  eight  classes  instead  of  eleven. 
At  that  time  there  were  distinct  trades,  embracing  all  the 
arts  of  remote  antiquity.  While  this  may  be  true  that  eight 
was  the  number  of  categories  there  certainly  is  agreement 
among  authors  as  to  about  that  number.6  It  would  appear 
by  their  complete  privilege  of  combination  and  their  ap¬ 
parently  perfect  recognition  by  this  wise  king  who  reigned 
probably  700  years  before  Christ,  that  at  times  there  must 
have  been  a  great  deal  of  skill  among  the  artisans.  Skilled 
mechanics  were  needed  to  make  all  the  armor  of  those  war¬ 
like  times.  During  the  reign  of  Numa  Pompilius  which 
lasted  thirty-nine  years  the  trade  unions  must  have  made 
great  advancement.7 *  Indeed,  considering  the  harsh  treat¬ 
ment  they  afterwards  received  at  the  hands  of  the  Roman 
emperors  in  later  years,  beginning  B.  C.  58,  we  are  left  to  in¬ 
fer  that  for  nearly  700  years  of  the  best  life  of  Rome  these 
labor  organizations  flourished  uninterruptedly.1  According 
to  Plutarch,  this  ancient  king  so  favored  the  idea  of  labor 
organizations  that  he  made  their  particular  case  the  very 
basis  of  a  great  reform.  Plutarch  tells  us  that  he  closed 
the  temple  of  Janus  for  forty-three  years,9  and  all  this  time 
there  was  perpetual  peace.  The  working  people  are  known 


5  Monnnsen,  Be  Coll,  et  S odal.  Rom,,  p.  78,  says:  The  relics  of  innumerable 
communal  associations  of  ancient  times,  are  seen  scattered  all  through  Italy,  as 
found  among  the  inscriptions  of  the  Italian  towns.  See  also  Plutarch’s  lAje  oj 
Numa,  much  quoted  by  writers. 

e  Pliny,  Naturalis  Ilistoi'ia,  XXXIV.  1.  “  JEqualem  Urbi  auctoritatem  ejus 

declarat,  a  rege  Numa  Collegio  tertio  eerariorum  fabrum  institute. ’’  Again 
XXXV.  12.  “Numa  rex  septimum  collegium  figulorum  instituit.” 

*  Dirksen,  Zwolf  Tafeln,  says;  “  Der  romische  Staat  vergonnte  urspriing- 
lich  lediglich  den  Gewerben,  die  den  Bediirl'nissen  des  Krieges  unci  des  gottes- 
dienstes  zuniichst  friJhnten,  seinen  unmittelbaren  Schutz  und  eine  selbstiindige 
Communalverfassung.” 

a  Mommsen,  Dt  Coll,  et  Sodal.  Rom.  p.  33.  “Jus  coeundi  fuit  antiquis  tem- 
poribus  omnibus  concessum.” 

9  I’lut.,  Numa  and  Lycurgus  compared.  “  The  primary  view  of  Numa’s  gov¬ 
ernment  which  was  to  settle  the  Romans  in  lasting  peace  and  tranquility,  im¬ 
mediately  vanished  with  him ;  for  alter  his  death,  the  temple  of  Janus,  which 
he  had  kept  shut  as  if  it  had  really  held  war  in  prison  and  subjection,  was  set  wide 
vpen,  and  Italy  was  filled  with  blood.” 


ORGANIZATION. 


m 

to  havj  had  their  golden  era  during  the  reign  of  this  great 
lawgiver.1*  If  for  no  other  reason  than  this,  the  reign  of 
Numa  Pompilius  must  ever  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  most 
valuable,  and  fraught  with  richest  lessons  to  the  human  race. 
It  is  true  that  this  is  not  so  considered  bv  students  of  history 
from  a  standpoint  of  great  historic  events,  or  of  religion  and 
philosophy  as  ordinarily  understood ,  but  the  student  of 
history  from  the  purely  sociological  basis  may  justly  regard 
this  reign  as  one  of  the  marvels  of  the  world.  We  are  at  a 
loss  to  understand  how  Plutarch,  with  his  clear  mind  and 
honest  motives,  could  have  compared  Numa  with  Lycurgns. 
But  Plutarch  was  not  a  socialist.  He  did  not  understand 
the  immense  world  of  meaning  rolled  up  in  the  mystic  deeds 
of  Numa,  whose  reign,  had  it  proved  a  failure,  he  himself 
would  not  have  praised. 

But  Numa’s  reign  was  by  no  means  arfailure.  It  was  a 
decided  departure  from  the  customs  of  those  ancient  days, 
because  it  completely  discountenanced  the  warlike  ambi¬ 
tions  of  other  rulers  and  cultivated  the  arts  of  peace.  To 
carry  out  such  a  policy  it  was  necessary  to  have  industry 
made  respectable  and  stand  boldly  to  the  front,  and  be  in 
every  way  protected. 

But  the  trades  were  already  organized.  He  did  not  or¬ 
ganize  them  that  we  know  of,  but  simply  accorded  them 
free  privileges  to  organize  themselves.  He  classed  his  peo¬ 
ple  of  all  grades  by  a  method  of  his  own  and  in  that  classi¬ 
fication  made  a  place  for  the  workers  whom  he  wTas  wise 
and  manly  enough  to  recognize.  Before  the  time  of  Numa 
the  working  people  had  never  been  recognized  that  we  are 
aware  of.  His  distribution  of  the  entire  industrial  class 
into  eight  or  nine  grand  divisions  or  trades,11  does  not  prob¬ 
ably  imply  that  there  was  no  greater  variety  than  this,  but 
it  was  probably  merely  for  the  sake  of  convenience. 

We  are  not  to  suppose,  because  the  free  right  of  combi¬ 
nation  was  given  the  working  people  by  king  Numa,  that 


t#  KEr  Si  i)  Siavofiri  tcard  rot  rexvat,  avXijTwr  (Ante  players'),  xpv<roxo<ov 

(gold  workers),  t tKrbvuv  (carpenters),  /3 a<ptuv  (dyers),  vkvtot6[xihv  (shoemakers), 
ff»cuTo5e» pity  (tanners  and  carriers),  j^oAKew*'  (braziers),  Ktpa/xeuv  (potters),  rat  <5« 

Aoiira?  ri\vai  «it  Tavrb  avvayuyitv  tv  avrutv  ix  iraauv  ave84i£e  avo-nj^a.”  (Plut. 
Num.  17). 

11  Mommsen,  idem,  p.  29.  Hroc  si  expendimus,  videmus  Plutarchum  for- 
tas.'-e  etiam  Florum  totumpopulum  non  opifices  tantum  in  IX  classes  distribuere, 
quod  etsi  absurdum  est,  notandnm  tamen,  cum  inde  nonum  collegium  ortiun 
*s«e  videatur.  ” 


TRADE  UNION  LA  W  OF  THE  XII  TABLES.  337 


this  carried  with  it  all  the  immunities  belonging  to  other 
people.  Caste  remained.  They  were  still  looked  upon  as 
degraded  creatures.  It  was  for  the  Christian  era  to  declare 
the  absolute  equality  of  men.  But  this  right  of  free  com¬ 
bination,  jus  coeundi ,  was  certainly  used  to  an  enormous 
extent  as  a  means  of  working  up  a  state  of  things  and  a 
spirit  of  freedom  or  self-constituted  public  opinion  among 
working  people,  fitting  them  by  slow  degrees,  to  consider 
themselves  equal  to  others.  The  right  of  combination 
during  this  remarkable  reign,  having  been  prominently 
and  thoroughly  established,  it  remained  so  for  over  600 
years;  and  we  are  told  explicitly  that  no  interruption  oc¬ 
curred  until  58  years  before  Christ,  for  both  the  efforts 
of  Claudius  and  Tarquin  to  suppress  them  entirely  failed. 

At  that  date  much  of  the  outcast  and  industrial  popula¬ 
tion  of  Borne  had  become  well  organized  and  workingmen 
were,  as  we  shall  see,  beginning  to  exercise  a  powerful 
political  influence.  They  had  been  violently  attacked  by 
Cicero  and  other  proud  aristocrats  and  nobly  and  success¬ 
fully  defended  by  Clodius  and  a  number  of  other  Boman 
officers  of  high  rank;  and  a  fierce  and  terrible  hatred  at¬ 
tended  with  clearly  discernible  political  manoeuvres,  was 
growing  into  an  issue  on  the  advent  of  the  Caesars. 

Lord  Mackenzie 12  says  that  “  the  earliest  legislation 
deserving  of  notice  was  the  celebrated  code  of  laws  called 
the  Twelve  Tables.0  Yet  so  far  as  the  treatment  of  our 
special  subject — that  of  the  strictly  laboring  people — is 
concerned,  these  were  but  the  simple  recording  of  the  old 
rules  of  Numa  Pompilius  and  of  Solon.  In  our  opinion 
Numa  hal  borrowed  inis  notions  regarding  the  organiza¬ 
tion  of  the  working  population  mostly  from  the  then 
existing  state  of  labor  organization  in  Egypt,  Asia  Minor 
and  Attica.13  We  have  repeatedly  shown  every  develop¬ 
ment  among  them  to  have  been  a  traceable  growth. 
Monarchs  and  lawgivers  when  clothed  with  power  could 
arrange  these  habits  of  their  subjects  into  words  and  forms 
but  the  people  themselves  had  already  been  using  them 
from  immemorial  times. 

Solon,  as  early  as  B.  C.  580  established  laws  permitting 


w  Roman  Law,  pp.  5-8. 

18  Gains,  XII.  Tables  explained  by  Dirksen.  Mom.  decoll.  etc.,  p.  3!).  ' 
abilis  esi  hoc  loco  lex  Solouis,  ex  qua  tacia  civili&que  communia  etc. 


838 


TRADE  ORGANIZATION . 


laboring  people  to  organize;  and  made  it  compulsory 
upon  boys  to  learn  a  trade.14  If  the  father  of  a  family  of 
working  people  neglected  to  do  this  he  could  not  compel 
his  sons  to  support  him  in  his  old  age.  Both  Solon  and 
Numa  legalized  the  organizations  of  working  people  and 
gave  them  the  full  right  of  combination.  Lycurgus,  on 
the  contrary,16  as  we  have  seen,  wanted  no  emancipated 
slaves.  He  was  an  upholder  of  military  despotism.  All 
labor  being  a  degraded  and  disgraceful  entailment,  must, 
under  the  laws  of  Lycurgus  be  performed  by  the  abject, 
groveling  slaves.  Thus  in  the  Peloponnesus,  trade  unions 
got  no  encouragement  whatever,  which  accounts  for  the 
paucity  of  stone  tablets  found  in  lower  Greece,  bearing 
inscriptions  commemorative  of  the  labor  unions.  North¬ 
ern  Greece,  the  islands,  Asia  Minor  and  Italy,  on  the  con¬ 
trary,  abound  in  these  suggestive  mementos  of  ancient 
labor  organization,  an  account  of  which  the  historians  of 
those  periods  have  sedulously  left  barren. 

All  this  proves  that  while  labor  was  grudgingly  toler¬ 
ated  as  a  necessary  means  of  life  to  the  gentile  classes  of 
both  Greece  and  Borne,  it  was  never  recognized  by  either 
as  respectable  or  hardly  decent ;  if  we  except  that  of  agri¬ 
culture  and  the  nearest  it  ever  came  to  any  recognition 
was  during  the  wise  and  happy  reign  of  king  Numa  Pom- 
pilius  who  extended  every  encouragement  to  its  organi¬ 
zation  and  died  leaving  it  a  veritably  abiding  institution 
as  his  laws  intended. 

He  actually  took  salient  and  very  suggestive  steps 
toward  filling  up  the  social  gap  separating  the  high-boms 
from  the  low-boms  of  Rome.  He  instituted  that  at  the 
Satumalian  feasts  which  occurred  every  December  as  a 
harvest  thanksgiving  or  carnival,  all  ranks  of  a  social  char¬ 
acter  should  be  forgotten ;  that  figuratively  no  slave,  no 
social  distinction,  no  arrogance  should  exist.  Thus  labor, 
for  a  moment  each  year,  was  raised  up  and  the  social  ar¬ 
rogance  of  wealth  and  birth  leveled  down,  to  a  par  with 
each  other.  But  it  must  not  for  a  moment  be  imagined 
that  the  working  people  of  either  Greece  or  Rome  ever 

51  Pint.  Solon;  Herodotus,  Euterpe,  cap.  177,  give*  os  a  hint  making  it  prob¬ 
able  that  trade  unionism  existed  in  Egypt  in  the  timo  of  Amasis  who  upheld  it: 
*  N6/ao»»  Aiyvjrrioicr*.  roi'Se  'Afiatrif  e<m  6  KarcurTqaar  awa&eucvvvat  «t«os  «*a<rrov 
rtf  vonapxil  iravra  noa  Aiyvirriuv,  odev  /3couT*r  fitf  to  vouvvra  Taira,  pr)Se  awtxfiai- 
tvra  SiKiLfiv  jOiji',  iQoi’todat.  davariZ. 

14  Fiat.  Lycurgos  and  Numa  compared. 


THE  WRITTEN  LAW. 


339 


arose  to  be  considered  by  the  gens,  or  patrician  stock  as 
anything  more  than  plebians  who  were  outcasts  by  birth, 
and  though  often  the  children  of  patrician  fathers,  yet 
through  the  ancient  religio-political  law  of  primogeniture, 
or  the  sacred  law  of  inheritance,  were  relegated  into  bond¬ 
age  whence  they  never  escaped  except  through  gradual 
development  by  manumissions,  and  finally  through  the 
mighty  all-levelling  proclamations  of  Jesus  which  theoret¬ 
ically  and  at  last  practically  overthrew  every  distinction. 

But  we  shall  more  elaborately  treat  this  grand  and  ex¬ 
traordinary  episode  in  human  development  in  our  sketch 
of  Jesus,  from  a  business-like  or  secular  point  of  consider¬ 
ation,  as  a  subject  of  inquiry  into  sociological  phenomena. 

We  now  return  to  Lord  Mackenzie’s  statement  that 
the  decemviral  code  ” — meaning  the  Twelve  Tables — “  the 
plebeians  gained  a  considerable  step  toward  the  adjust¬ 
ment  of  their  differences  with  the  patricians,  but  it  was 
nearly  80  years  before  these  differences  were  settled  by 
the  admission  of  the  plebeians  to  the  supreme  offices  of 
the  state.” 16 

In  the  first  place,  this  “  considerable  step  toward  the 
adjustment  of  differences”  was  taken  under  king  Numa, 
118  years  before  the  Twelve  Tables  were  engraved  upon 
the  slabs.  In  the  .second,  the  very  first  decemvirs  were 
composed  of  such  tyrannical  usurpers  and  aristocrats  as 
Appius  Claudius,  who,  although  they  had  the  laws  adjust¬ 
ing  the  differences  between  patricians  and  plebians  en¬ 
graved  upon  eleven  Tables,  yet  they  prevented  the  latter 
from  realizing  their  benefits.  Another  thing  must  be  con¬ 
tinually  borne  in  mind,  that  under  the  sway  of  the  Pagan 
or  competitive  religion,  which  was  the  foundation  of  law 
and  social  order,  any  absolute  equality  between  patricians 
and  plebians  was  impossible  from  beginning  to  end;  and 
no  assertion  that  the  adjustment  of  differences  was  ever 
gained  by  any  means  can  be  considered  correct.  The  dif¬ 
ference  between  them  always  remained;  but  under  the 
gracious  adjustment  of  N uma  and  of  Solon,  afterwards 
inscribed  in  Latin  from  a  Greek  translation,  in  a  formal 
law  upon  the  Twelve  Tables  at  Rome,  the  right  of  organ¬ 
ization  first  came  to  the  freedmen,  in  letters.  Nor  does 
this  right  of  organization  apply  to  the  slaves,  who  still 

W  Mackenzie,  Roman  Law,  p  7. 


S40 


ORGANIZATION. 


existed  in  great  numbers.  On  the  contrary  we  show,  ir 
our  sketch  of  Spartacus  and  repeatedly  elsewhere,  that 
the  rapacity  of  the  Roman  lords  and  middlemen  finally 
became  so  great  that  they  bought  up  slaves,  redoubled 
their  numbers,  encroached  upon  the  common  farm  lands 
and  upon  manufactures  with  cheap  slave  labor,  each  own¬ 
ing  great  numbers  of  slaves,17  and  finally  under  Csesar, 
succeeded  in  procuring  conspiracy  laws  which  suppressed 
the  trade  and  many  other  species  of  organization,  open¬ 
ing  the  way  by  sheer  aggravations,  for  the  advent  of  a 
completely  new  order  of  things  in  the  repudiation  of 
paganism  entirely,  and  the  embrace,  mostly  by  these 
wretched  slaves  and  persecuted  freedmen,  of  a  totally  new 
religion  which  built  upon  the  workingmen’s  fundamental 
principle  that  all  are  born  free  and  equal. 

Thus  it  becomes  evident  that  writers  who  speak  of  the 
three  forms  of  Roman  law  afterwards  known  as  the  leges 
populi,  the  plebiscita  and  the  senatus  consulti ,  must,  if  from 
a  standpoint  of  social  science,  be  very  careful  not  to  count 
the  two-thirds  of  the  entire  Roman  population,  who  were 
abject  slaves,18  enjoying  neither  freedom,  respect,  right  of 
resistance  or  organization  whatsoever. 

The  great  trade  organization  received  their  first  serious 
blew  through  the  law  which  suppressed  open  work  and 
drove  them  into  secret  conclave,  counter  manoeuvres  and 
diplomacy.  We  have  said  that  historians  carefully  avoided 
any  mention  of  these  troubles.  This  is  true ;  but  the  labor 
turmoils  open  to  the  students  of  sociology  the  true  mean¬ 
ing  of  certain  slurs  occurring  in  the  speeches  and  epistles 
of  Cicero  and  others,  the  import  of  which  can  be  explained 
in  no  other  way.19  We  must  constantly  hold  uppermost  the 


u  Crassus  owned  500  slaves,  see  Plut.  Crassns,  2.  C.  CsbIIus  Claudius  owned 
according  to  Pliny,  no  fewer  than  4,116  at  a  time,  .  .  .  quamvis  multa  civili 
bello  perdidisset,  tarnen  relinquere  servorum  quatuor  millia  centum  sedecim.” 
Nat.  Hist.  XXXIII.  47.  Great  numbers  of  slaves  existed  in  antiquity.  See  Wal¬ 
lace,  Numbers  of  Mankind  p.  54,  sq.  Immense  population  during  the  slave  era, 
pp.  294-303.  Also  pp.  91  and  97;  Athenteus  V.  20.  Ancient  Census  and  re¬ 
marks  of  Hume,  Ancient  Populousness  declaring  that  Athenseus  does  not  reckon 
the  children.  iEmilius  Paulus  after  the  battle  of  Pydna,  B.  C.  167,  destroyed 
70  cities  of  Epirus  taking  the  value  of  10,000,000  dollars  in  gold  and  160,000  peo¬ 
ple  as  war-slaves  to  Home  and  the  provinces,  Wallace  p.  300  and  Livy,  XLV,  c. 
14.  See  Seneca,  De  Tranquilitate,  8;  Vast  numbers  in  Crete  see  Lippincott, 
Pronouncing  Gazetteer  of  the  World  art.  Crete.  They  were  mostly  slaves  and  freed¬ 
men;  Plato  Laws  vii.  11.  Countless  Myriads  of  Women  they  call  Sauromatides. 

18  Cf.  Wallace.IVambcrs  of  Mankind,  p .  61.  Liv.  lib.  6,  cap.  12. 

19  Cicero,  Pro  Sesto,  25  ;  “  Collegia  non  modo  ilia  vetera  contra  SC.  restitu- 
erentiir  sed  ab  uno  gladiatore  innumerubilia  alia  nova  conscriberentur."  Thil 


THE  ANCIENT  COLLEGIUM. \ 


341 


causes  of  tlie  Christian  idea  skipping  southern  Greece  in 
its  westward  course  and  planting  itself  at  Rome  and  every¬ 
where  among  the  already  existing  communes,  with  a  view 
of  determining  a  soluticnto  this  phenomenon  in  the  great 
social  field  already  prepared  there  by  these  organizations. 

King  Numa  by  no  means  originated  the  union  of  the 
trades  at  Rome.  He  simply  permitted  and  encouraged 
what  already  existed.  We  now  proceed  to  give  some  facts 
in  regard  to  them.  Although  the  king  distributed  the 
working  people  into  eight  or  nine  classes  we  are  not  to 
suppose  that  there  was  no  greater  variety  of  handicraft  in 
his  time.  There  are  still  extant  slabs  and  stones  found  in 
different  places  in  Italy,  notably  at  Rome  and  what  were 
ancieut  towns  and  cities  south  and  east  of  Rome,  bearing 
inscriptions  which  indicate  that  large  numbers  of  trades 
were  plied  in  very  ancient  times. 

The  Collegium  a  veritable  trade  union  was  originally  an 
organization  of  working  people  for  mutual  aid  and  protec¬ 
tion.  During  the  39,  or  as  Plutarch  puts  it,  43  years  of 
Numa’s  reign  we  hear  of  no  contortion  or  prevarication 
of  this  word  from  that  correct  and  original  sense.  But 
after  his  death,  when  the  temple  of  Janus  was  reopened 
and  wars  and  their  harvests  of  brutality  and  repression 
disturbed  the  serenity  of  labor  making  the  mechanics  watch¬ 
ful  of  their  interests,  they  somewhat  changed  their  out¬ 
ward  appearance  but  not  their  character.  For  instance, 
a  trade  union  of  to-day  is  often  a  protective,  an  insurance 
and  a  burial  society.  So  it  was  then;  but  amid  the  tur¬ 
moils,  suspicions  and  dangers  of  war  it  often  became 
convenient,  in  order  to  suit  appearances  to  be  exclusively 
religious.  The  Pagan  religion  was  at  that  time  popular. 
Each  of  the  great  popular,  aristocratic  families  or  geiis 
had  a  tutelary  saint  or  other  object  of  worship,  and  it 
was  very  convenient  for  the  trade  union  to  dedicate  itself 
to  one  of  these  tutelary  deities;  not  only  to  elicit  favor 
from  the  great  patrons  but  also  because  they  were  them¬ 
selves  religiously  inclined.  Thus  the  colleges,  although 
they  maintained  their  practical  economic  or  trade  union 
object  of  mutual  advantage  in  a  business  sense,  oiten 
passed  for  religious  institutions;  and  we  have  abundant 

fling;  was  probably  hurled  at  ('Iodine  with  a  bitter  reference  to  Spartacus. 
sketch  of  Spartacus,  chapter  XI 


m 


ORGANIZATION. 


evidence  of  this,  not  in  the  written  histories  but  in  the 
inscriptions  which  now  begin  to  exhibit  in  a  new  and  sig¬ 
nificant  manner,  their  character  and  career. 

The  ancient  collegia  or  working  people’s  fraternities  in 
Italy  were  not  confined  to  the  male  sex.  In  later  eras  of 
the  empire  they  existed  in  great  numbers  as  the  inscrip¬ 
tions  show.  Some  of  them  were  composed  partly,  and  a 
few  are  known  to  have  been  composed  entirely  of  women. 

The  learned  archaeologist,  Johann  Casper  Orelli,  has  de¬ 
voted  89  octavo  Latin  pages 20  to  the  enumeration  of  a  col¬ 
lection  of  stone  inscription-bearing  tablets  on  which  in 
ancient  days,’  were  engraved  the  wills  of  the  deceased,  the 
tutelary  gods  worshipped  by  the  members,  sometimes 
even  the  manner  in  wrhicli  they  came  to  their  death,  the 
degree  of  conjugal  affection  in  which  they  had  mutually 
lived  together  and  many  other  little  particulars  shedding 
important  and  interesting  light  upon  their  mode  of  liv¬ 
ing  n  in  those  ancient  days — events  left  almost  totally 
blank  on  the  pages  of  history. 

Gruter,  another  archaeologist  of  great  patience  and 
erudition,  has  given  us  an  immense  collection  M  of  ancient 
inscriptions,  many  of  which  are  accompanied  by  his  own 
readings;  thus  laying  the  foundations  for  simplifying  the 
keys  to  the  study  of  sociology,  and  enriching  the  mind  by 
a  knowledge  of  ancient  customs. 

The  archaeological  works  of  Raffaello  Fabretti  have  also 
furnished  us  a  large  amount  of  material,  while  Theodore 
Mommsen  has  applied  his  usual  care  and  judgment  in 
making  clear  much  of  that  which  otherwise  we  might  have 
overlooked. 

The  collegium  funerarium  was  the  burial  society.  After 
gathering  all  the  information  at  our  command,  we  are  con¬ 
strained  to  conclude  that  it  much  resembled  the  great 
system  of  friendly  or  burial  societies  of  Great  Britain  at 
tne  present  day.  They  existed  in  large  numbers,  especi¬ 
ally  at  Rome ;  and  in  later  times,  after  the  passage  of  the 
laws  of  repression  they  were  mostly  exempt,  because  re- 
hgious.  Of  this  we  shall  speak  later. 

20  Oreliius,  Incriptionum  Latinarum  Sdtctarum  Ampliuima  CollecUc,  pp.  274- 

860  of  Vol.  II.  Sepulcralia, 

No  4,352  Oreil.  reads:  “  Numisin®  conjapl  caetlsslmw  et  incomparabill 
ndfeciiona  leinimaj  cum  qua  vlxit  aun.  XVII.,  .Mena.  XI.,  D;eb.  XVII.” 

22  Gruteriua,  Inscription*!  Antiques  Totius  Orbit  Rcrmanorut ». 


SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION. 


843 


From  the  prodigious  labors  of  Muratori  we  also  obtain 
several  valuable  contributions,23  especially  so  on  account 
of  examples  he  gives,  of  genuine  trade  unions,  inscriptions 
of  which  he  took  from  Cis-Alpine  Gaul,  that  were  written 
early  in  the  Christian  era. 

Rose,  a  learned  Greek  scholar 24  and  antiquarian,  wrote 
a  work  from  which  we  find  much  evidence  in  support  of 
our  theme,  especially  regarding  the  high  status  in  skill  of 
workmen  in  ancient  days ;  and  the  splendid  work  of  Guhl 
and  Koner  entitled  “The  Life  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,” 
fortunately  well  translated  into  English  further  intensi¬ 
fies  our  wonder  at  the  high  perfection  to  which  the  labor 
of  antiquity  had  brought  the  arts  and  architecture. 

From  the  analytical  works  of  August  Bdckh,  wre  have 
deduced  considerable,  proving  that  the  organizations  of  the 
proletaries  were  by  no  means  confined  to  Italy.25  If  Cicero 
could  say  they  were  “  innumerable  in  all  Italy,”  Athe- 
nagaros  might  also  have  said  they  were  equally  abundant 
throughout  the  peninsula  of  Greece  and  the  Ionian  Isles. 
The  writers  we  refer  to  find  tablets  of  stone  in  all  these 
countries,  some  of  them,  excusably  enough,  engraved  with 
words  often  wrongly  spelled,  sometims  in  words  suggest¬ 
ive  of  the  prevailing  lingo,  perhaps  even  slang  language 
which  slaves  and  their  descendants,  the  freedmen,  almost 
always  without  education,  w7ould  naturally  make  use  of, 
which  is  of  itself  exceedingly  interesting,  bringing  the 
working  people  of  ancient  Rome,  Greece  and  Asia  freshly 
down  to  us,  as  it  were,  in  their  work  clothes,  their  tools  in 
hand,  and  their  careless  vernacular  exactly  as  used  in 
every  day  life. 

In  announcing  our  remarks  on  the  ancient  Sepulcralia 
or  burial  societies,  we  cannot  do  better  than  refer  to  the 
popular  scientific  research  on  the  origin  of  the  plebians, 
by  Prof.  Fustel  de  Coulanges.  This  author,  while  not  ap¬ 
pearing  to  understand  that  they  might  have  been  partly 
derived  from  the  outcasts  of  the  patrician  family,  rele¬ 
gated  by  the  paterfamilias  into  slavery,  admits  fully  as 
much.”  Every  student  of  the  facts  recognizes  that  the 

83  Muratoias,  Antiquitates  Ilalicce,  Medii  JEvi,  6  vole.  Milan,  1,744. 

*'  Kose,  Insmptiones  Grcecce  Vetuslissimce 

*s  Itockh,  Corpus  InscripUonvm  Grcecarvm ,  3  vois  Perlin,  1853,  folio. 

1  Nous  sonimes  ponrtant  frappe de  voir  dan?  Tito- Live,  <)ui  connaiseait’  lea 
▼tellies  tr«  Itions,  que  les  patricu  up  n  prochaient  aux  plebeions  non  pas  d  etre 
l*8us  des  populations  vaincues,  inais  de  manquer  ue  religion  et  m&me  de  faxniiie. 


344 


ORGANIZATION. 


great  plebeian  class  of  the  ancient  population  was  origin* 
ally  derived  from  the  outcasts  of  the  family  and  that  they 
were,  as  a  religio-political  consequence,  without  a  religion, 
without  a  home,  without  even  a  recognition  or  count  among 
the  citizen  population 27  and  without  marriage  rites.  They 
were  consequently  all  illegitimates.38  These  are  stupend¬ 
ous  facts,  little  understood  by  people  of  this  day. 

These  were  great  grievances  which  they  had  to  bear. 
They  built  up  among  themselves  a  religion  of  their  own, 
had  secret  organizations  and  burial  societies  which  often 
served  as  a  shield  to  their  trade  unions,  from  the  law.” 
They  were  regarded  by  Cicero  as  wild  beasts; 80  and  he 
invariably  speaks  of  the  organized  proletaries  with  scath¬ 
ing  contempt.  Just  after  the  death  of  Spartacus,  while 
the  senate  was  endeavoring  to  pass  a  law  for  the  suppres¬ 
sion  of  labor  organizations,  Claudius  Pulcher,  who  to 
“  curry  favor  with  the  plebeians,” 81  changed  his  name  to 
Clodius,  and  boldly  came  to  the  front  in  defense  of  the 
labor  unions.  In  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  Cicero  against 
him  Clodius  actually  succeeded  not  only  in  preventing 
the  passage  of  restrictive  laws  against  the  trade  and  other 
organizations,  but  secured  the  enactment  of  several  others, 
greatly  favoring  the  proletaries  who  had  been  covertly 
using  their  secret  burial  societies  and  mutual  aid  com¬ 
munes  as  organizations  of  resistance.  Cicero  was  greatly 


Or,  ce  reproche  qni  6tait  d6ja  imm6rit6  an  temps  de  Liclnius  Stolon  et  que  les 
contemporains  de  Tite-Live,  comprenaient  i  peine,  devait  remonter  &  une  6poque 
trSs  ancienne  et  nous  reporte  aux  premiers  temps  de  la  cit6.5’  (Fustel  de  Cou- 
langes,  Cite  Antique ,  p.  278). 

27  La  Cits  Antique,  p.  322 :  “  Les  homines  de  la  classe  inf6rieure  form&rent 
entre  eux  un  corps,”  and  again  p.  278:  “Le  people  comprenait  les  patriciens  et 
leurs  clients ;  la  plebs  6tait  en  dehor.” 

28  idem,  p.  278-9:  “O’  etait  renoncer  a  une  religion.  Ajoutons  encore  qu« 
le  fils  nS  d’  un  marriage  sans  rites,  etait  reput6  b&tard,  comme  celui  qui  6tait  n4 
de  Padultere,  et  la  religion  domestique  n’  existait  pas  pour  eux.”  So  with  the 
ancients  religion  and  citizenship  were  one  and  the  same  thing. 

29  Mommsen,  De  Collegiis  et  Sodalicus  Romanorum ,  p.  4.  “  Tanta  vero  fult 
sodalitatis  religio,  ut  publicis  etiam  legibus  sodales  prohiberentur,  quominos 
earn  lsederent.” 

so  “  Fera  quaedam  sodalitas  et  plane  pastoritia  atque  agrestis  Germanorum 
lupercorum:  quorum  coitio  ilia  eylvestris  ante  est  instituta,  quam  humanitaa 
atque  leges. ’*  Cicero,  Pro  Marco  Coelio,  11. 

81  See  American  Encyclopcedle,  Article  Clodius.  Were  it  not  that  this  article 
was  written  in  the  same  spirit  of  aristocratic  bias  of  patrician  history,  it  would 
have  to  be  pronounced  by  the  student  of  sociology  as  scurrilous.  The  truth  is, 
Clodius  was  at  heart,  a  noble,  wise  and  exceedingly  able  tribune  He  was  one 
of  those  in  the  army  of  Lucullus,  who  took  part  in  the  suppression  of  Spartaous. 
After  his  overthrow  6,000  of  the  proletaries  were  brutally  crucified  on  the  Ap- 
pian  way  lining  that  avenue  for  miles  with  this  horrid  spectacle  From  that  time 
Clodius  was  the  staunch  lawyer  of  organized  labor. 


CICERO  THE  WORKINGMAN'S  TOE. 


343 


incensed  at  this.81  It  is  clear  that  Cicero,  who  was  intensely 
aristocratic,  drew  down  upon  him,  in  his  prodigious  de¬ 
fense  of  the  gentes  and  the  correspondingly  aggravating 
raillery  against  the  organized  workers,  the  hatred  and  re¬ 
venge  of  the  laboring  element  of  Rome,  who,  driven  to 
straits,  took  up  the  political  issue  and  even  took  up  arms. 
These  studies  are  exceedingly  interesting,  inasmuch  as 
they  reveal  to  us  that  Rome  at  that  time — less  than  100 
years  before  Christ,  was  very  populous,  that  much  the 
larger  share  of  her  population  consisted  of  the  proletaries 
both  slaves  and  freedmen,  and  that  the  freedmen  and  some 
of  the  slaves  were  organized;  and  finally  that  this  organi¬ 
zation,  whether  in  shape  of  burial  or  of  trade  unions,  was 
the  cause  of  political  contention,  which  grew  rapidly  into 
vast  commotions  and  a  civil  duel  between  the  gentiles  and 
the  proletaries.  Cicero,  the  mortal  foe  of  the  latter,  was 
constantly  inveighing  a  gainst  them 88  until  his  death.  In 
fact,  it  will  be  easily  shown  that  the  great  orator  came  to 
his  death  directly  in  consequence  of  his  bitter  complicity 
in  th  ese  labor  convulsions,  always  taking  sides  against’ them. 

A  curious  fact  is  observed,  in  looking  over  Orelli  and 
Grater’s  list  of  inscriptions  of  the  burial  societies,  show¬ 
ing  that  among  the  poorest  the  practice  of  cremation  was 
common.  The  order  had  niches  or  recesses  attached  to 
the  grounds  frequented  by  them  for  their  meetings;  and 
being  too  poor,  in  fact  disallowed  the  noble  rite  of  burial 
and  its  attendant  family  worship,  they  were  obliged  to 
burn  the  bodies  of  the  deceased  and  preserve  their  ashes 
in  pots  called  ollx  cinerarix .“  The  poor  fellows,  having 
no  religion  of  their  own,  denied  that  honor  by  the  privi¬ 
leged  classes  who  lived  upon  their  labor,  and  often  being 

82  Cic.,  Pro  Sexto  We  render  as  follows:  ‘-This  Clodias  has  chosen  this 
name  instead  of  Aurelias  for  his  tribunal  labors  to  curry  favor  with  the  organ¬ 
ized  slaves  -men  enlisted  from  the  streets  arranged  in  companies,  cheered  on  by 
his  moral  stimulus  to  arms,  to  pillage.” 

88  Mommsen  says :  “  Compluribus  locis  Cicero  invehitur  In  P.  Clodinm  resti- 
tntis,  lege  sua  collegiis  ann.  58  ante  Christ,  nova  collegia  ordlnantem.”  (De 
Coll,  et  Sodal.  Rom.  p  57.) 

84  Rg.  Orelli,  Inscr.  No.  4,358.  Scpulcralia ,  reads:  “  D  M.  M.  Herennius  a 
plowman  and  Herennia  Lacena  writ  en  in  their  son’s  own  handwriting.  The 
pot  coi.taining  the  ashes  stnnds  on  left  side  of  the  monument,”  etc.,  etc.  8o 
agaiu  »  alii  and  Koner,  Life  of  the  Greeks  and  womans,  pp.  378-9,  figs  401, 
402  and  oibers  with  descriptions.  These  represent  the  celebrated  C&mlumbaria 
Of  which  Gorius  wrote  an  elaborate  work,  illustrated  with  engravings.  Fig.  403 
shows  not  only  the  niches  in  which  stand  to  this  day  the  cinerary  urns,  but  also 
the  urns  themselves.  One  columbarium,  the  Vigna  Codim,  has 425  such  niches  in 
nine  rows,  n  479.  A  small  marble  over  each  urn  gives  the  name.  These  are 
the  burial  places  (see  p.  377 ;  of  the  slaves  and  freedmen. 


346 


ORGANIZATION. 


of  the  same  original  stock  and  consequently  of  religious 
tendency,  were  in  the  habit  of  borrowing  from  the  ge?is 
families  some  tutelary  deity  in  whose  name  to  worship. 
This,  it  appears,  they  had  always  maintained  the  right  to 
do.  When  Christianity  came  a  few  years  afterwards,  with 
its  new  and  absolutely  democratic  religion  and  its  mutual 
co-operation  more  nearly  fitted  to  their  case,  they  em¬ 
braced  it  in  great  numbers. 

Mommsen  mentions  some  regulations  in  the  laws  gov¬ 
erning  the  burial  societies;  among  others  is  one  against 
suicide.86  It  was  a  law  for  preventing  suicide  by  appeal¬ 
ing  to  their  pride  in  a  decent  burial ;  and  prohibited  any 
money  being  taken  from  the  communal  fund  wherewith 
to  defray  the  funeral  expenses  of  the  suicide. 

After  the  passage  of  the  conspiracy  laws,  B.  0.  58,  the 
unions  continued  to  exercise  their  wonted  habits  in  defi¬ 
ance  of  the  laws  of  suppression.  Two  causes  lie  at  the 
base  of  this  fact;  there  were  by  this  time  wealthy  business 
men  in  the  organizations  who  controlled  social  and  polit¬ 
ical  influence,  although  themselves  of  plebeian  stock. 
This  is  one  cause.  Another  is,  that  the  organizations, 
when  they  felt  the  knife  of  persecution,  withdrew  them¬ 
selves  from  public  view  and  became  intensely  secret. 
Where  the  organizations  were  for  religious  purposes  they 
were  not  suppressed;  but  there  was  a  special  regulation 
fixing  it  so  that  they  could  simulate,  or  use  religion  as  a 
cloak.**  It  is  very  unfortunate  that  the  ancient  laws  of  the 
Twelve  Tables  were  not  preserved  so  as  to  have  come 
down  to  us  as  engraved.  They  are  known  to  have  been 
placed  in  the  most  conspicuous  part  of  the  Roman  forum. 
It  was  the  oldest  of  the  three  written  systems  of  Roman 
Law 87  having  been  established  B.  C.  452.  It  is,  moreover, 
now  supposed  to  have  been  almost  identical  with  the 
Greek  law;  the  provisions,  so  far  as  the  labor  communes 
are  concerned,  being  alike  for  the  Greeks  and  Romans. 
It  appeared  to  Gaius  to  be  a  translation,  and  seems  to  have 

*5  Item  placnit,  qnlsquls  ex  qnacumque  causa  mortem  sibi  adsciverit,  q)na 
ratio  funeris  non  habebitur.”  (fie  Coll,  and  Sodal.  Rom.  p.  100.) 

36  Mommsen  Idem,  p.  87  ;  “Ipsa  ilia  siinulata  religio  senatum  promovit  nt 
jus  coeundi  tollerat.”  The  clause  of  the  law  appears  to  e  ce  t  or  exempt  those 
aged  associations  known  to  be  beyond  suspicion  :  “  Sub  prauextn  religionis  vcl 
sub  specie  solveudi  voti  ccetus  iliic  tos'nec  a  veteranis  tentari  oportet.”  (Le  *  'i. 
Dig,  dt  extr.  crim.  xlvii,  ii. 

<  Mackenzie,  Roman  Laws,  p.  5  7  . 


BURIAL  ASSOCIATIONS. 


847 


been  the  identical  law  of  Solon  who  is  known  to  have 
given  the  free  right  of  organization  to  the  proletaries  of 
Athens,”  Oar  opinion  is  that  these  Tables  of  laws  favor¬ 
ing  the  laboring  classes,  had  become  so  obnoxious  to  the 
Roman  gentes  that  they  determined  to  rid  the  forum  of  its 
presence,  thus  virtually  annulling  the  laws. 

Large  numbers  of  burial  associations  existed  and  it  is 
repeatedly  acknowledged  that  they  often  acted  as  a  shield 
to  the  real  trade  unions  under  the  garb  of  religion,  not¬ 
withstanding  the  law.  Mommsen  describes  a  burial  soci¬ 
ety  at  Alburnum  in  Lucania  the  notice  of  which  was  found 
inscribed  on  a  libellus  with  some  words  spelled  wrongly : 
“  Artimidorus  Apollonii,  magister  collegii  Iovis  Cernani  et 
Valerius  Niconis  et  Ohas  Menofili,  qusestores  collegii  ejus- 
dem,  posito  hoc  libello  publice  testantur.”  Then  follow 
the  laws  of  the  society  prescribing  the  use  of  the  common 
fund.  Mommsen,  however  remarks:89  “It  is  clear  that 
this  mutual  relief  society  of  Cernanus,  although  bearing 
or  holding  up  the  name  of  a  god,  was  nevertheless  insti¬ 
tuted,  in  order  to  give  the  funeral  benefit,  collected  within 
a  certain  time  and  under  the  law,  to  the  heirs  of  the  de¬ 
ceased”  This  means  that  under  the  semblance  of  the 
burial  society,  they  substantially  met  as  a  mutual  aid  com¬ 
mune — perhaps  a  trade  organization.  Again,  aside  from 
the  opinion  of  Mommsen,  always  reliable,  we  have  Ascon- 
ius  for  positive  testimony  that  frequently  the  sacred  soci- 
ties,  of  which  the  burial  societies  were  a  part,  were  sup¬ 
pressed  on  suspicion  that  they  were  discovered  by  the 
police  to  be  engaged  in  carrying  out  the  business  of  those 
trade  or  other  organizations  on  which  the  conspiracy  law 
had  laid  its  hand.49 

**  Cf.  Grander,  Uistoire  des  Classes  Ouvritoret,  p.  325.  “  Noug  avons  fait  voir 

<S’  ailleurs  que  la  loi  romaine  des  Douze-T&bles  Bur  lea  corpora; ious  contcnait  leg 
luSmes  dispositions  que  la  ioi  grecque,  a  ce  point  qu’  elles  out  paru  a  Gaius  etre 
la  traduction  1’  une  de  l’  autre.”  The  words  of  Gaius  ( vide  Digest ,  lib.  XL VII, 
tit.  xxii.  leg.  4,  will  be  found  quoted  in  our  note  87,  page  127,  On  page  290, 
note  1,  Granier  speaks  of  the  intimate  relations  between  Athenian  and  toman 
trade  unions  as  follows;  “Du  reste,  si  le  texte  de  I'lutarque  pouvait  laisser 
quelque  doute  sur  le  fait  des  jurandes  at.h6niennes,  un  fragment  de  Gaius  sur 
les  itouzes  Tables,  conserve  par  le  Digeste,  ditque  la  loi  sur  les  corps  des  metiers 
parait  avoir  ete  empruntee  aux  lois  de  Soion  sur  la  meiue  matiere ;  et  la  dess  us 
Gan  s  cite  le  texte  meme  de  la  loi  de  Solon,  dans  lequel  il  est  statue  que  lea 
raembreg  des  metiers  peuvent  s  eriger  eux-memes  en  corporations  en  t  espectaut 
les  lois  de  l’fitat.” 

8«  Mommsen,  De  Collegii*  et  Seddlicila  Romanorum,  p.  94. 

40  “  Frequenter  turn  etiarn  coetus  factiosorum  hominum,  sine  publica  aucto* 
ritate,  malo  publico  flebant  ...  propter  quod  postea  collegia  sancta  et  pluri> 
bus  legibus,  sunt  subiata.”  (Ascon.  in  Cornet,  p.  7,r> 


q48 


ORGANIZATION . 


By  far  the  most  numerous  and  powerful  of  the  organi¬ 
zations  of  proletaries  or  outcasts  among  the  ancients  were 
the  genuine  trade  unions.41  Had  it  not  been  for  the  an¬ 
cient  habit,  probably  established  by  the  lost  law  of  the 
Twelve  Tables,  of  inscribing42  more  or  less  of  the  objects, 
dates,  names  of  leaders  or  organizers,  and  name  of  the 
tutelary  deity  under  which  they  chose  to  worship — being 
proscribed  from  the  privilege  of  worship  of  their  own — 
we  should  be  altogether  without  data  regarding  the  vast 
trade  societies  which  from  immemorial  times  existed  in 
Greece  and  Rome  and  in  the  provinces  over  which  those 
nations  ruled.  We  have  sufficiently  explained  the  causes 
of  this  organization.  It  may  be  well,  however  to  sum 
them  up  in  this  manner: 

First  in  ancient  times  all  lands  not  belonging  to  the 
gens  estates  but  achieved  by  conquest,  were  common  pro¬ 
perty  of  the  state.  The  people  relied  upon  the  products 
of  these  lands  for  their  subsistence.  This  was  true  of 
people  of  all  ranks,  whether  the  haughty  gentes  or  the 
degraded  slaves.  Many  subsisted  upon  the  fruits  of  tbe 
common  lands.  King  Numa,  admitting  this,  was  wise 
enough  to, create,  or  rather  recognize  an  already  existing 
system  of  trade  or  business-unions,  the  special  function 
of  which  was  to  till  the  lands  and  divide  and  distribute 
the  products.  Nothing  could  be  more  sensible  and  noth¬ 
ing  more  practical  than  to  give  the  soil-tillers  their  or¬ 
ganizations  under  protection  of  the  state — and  this  means 
under  a  species  of  subvention  or  common  guarantee.  It 
must  not  be  forgotten  that  by  a  law  of  ancient  religion 
there  were  two  distinct  classes — workers  and  non- workers 
or  the  privileged  and  the  non-privileged  classes.  They 
were  so  distinct  that  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  declares 
that  the  latter  were  not  even  counted  with  the  people  or  enu¬ 
merated  in  the  census  as  human  beings;  a  fact  which  has 
caused  much  astonishment  to  the  writers  on  ancient  pop¬ 
ulousness;  some  counting  them  in  and  some  not;  thus 
producing  figures  so  ridiculously  at  variance  and  contra¬ 
dictory  that  nobody  pretends  except  approximately,  even 
to  conjecture  what  the  ancient  population  was!4* 

41  The  more  numerous  slaves  are  here  excepted. 

42  We  are,  aB  yet,  without  the  words  of  the  law  rendering  it  binding  npon  th« 
communes  to  set  up  and  inscribe  a  marble,  or  other  stone  slab.  It  was  probably 
lost  with  the  Twelve  Tables.  Also  the  similar  law  of  Solon. 

43  Of.  Wallace  on  the  “Numbeas  of  Mankind.’*  Edmburg,  1753,  p.  38 


GOVERNMENT  OWNED  THE  LAND. 


349 


Thus  for  many  centuries,  the  lands  of  the  ancient  Rom¬ 
ans,  called  ager  publicus  was  common  or  public  property, 
tilled  by  the  proletaries,  many  of  whom  were  organized 
into  unions  legalized  by  the  arrangements  of  the  Twelve 
Tables  which  was  merely  a  literal  ratification  of  the  plan 
of  Numa  Pompilius,  dividing  the  workers  into  nine  spe¬ 
cies  of  craft  and  allowing  each  the  autonomy  of  an  organ¬ 
ization.  This  shifted  from  the  shoulders  of  the  state  or 
land-owner  the  care  and  responsibility  of  cultivation,  while 
it  elevated  the  proletaries  to  the  practical  dignity  of  that 
work.  It  was  not  the  plan  of  small  holdings  by  isolated 
families  but  of  small  holdings  by  isolated  communes, 
which  in  turn,  were  amenable  to,  and  under  the  general 
direction  of  the  state,  or  common  proprietor. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  this  really  great  and  wise  system 
ever  attained  to  a  wide  extent.  The  idea  seems  to  have 
been  clear  to  the  workingmen  and  they  carried  it  into  force 
to  some  extent,  but  were  always  met  with  fierce  opposition. 
The  manner  in  which  the  state  obtained  its  share  of  the 
proceeds  or  usufruct  of  these  lands  was  by  the  Vec - 
tigalarii,  the  celebrated  union  of  tax  collectors  who,  in¬ 
stead  of  using  money,  took  the  tax  “  in  kind ;  ’’  which 
means  that  they  went  to  the  farmers,  agricolas ,  after  the 
harvests  and  with  wagons,  brought  to  the  Municipium  or 
town  in  whichever  district  they  were  stationed,  the  share 
of  the  proceeds  of  the  common  land  due  the  city  people 
— grain,  wool,  fruits,  pease,  beans  and  whatever  the  land 
produced.  The  grain  thus  collected  was  turned  over  to 
the  organization  of  the  united  pistorea  or  millers,  to  be 
ground;  thence  to  the  united  bakers,  panifices  to  be  made 
mtfo  bread.  So  with  regard  to  everything.  The  almost 
phenomenal  simplicity  and  universality  of  this  great  plan 
of  the  ancients  is  accounted  for  only  by  the  fact  that  there 
were  two  classes  so  widely  separated  that  the  very  toutch 
of  a  proletary  was  supposed  to  pollute.  In  consequence 
of  this  wide  distinction  the  merchant,  who  was  also  a  work¬ 
ingman,  could  not  become  a  monopolist  because  he  was 
obliged  to  be  a  unionist  which  naturally  recognized  him 
at  a  par  with  his  peers.  This  was  a  direct  result  of  the 
crude  communism  which  legalized  trade  unionism  had 


“  Slaves  who  were  of  so  little  account  under  the  ancient  governments.”— “Free 
citizens  who  alone  had  a  voice  in  the  public  councils.” 


360 


ORGANIZATION. 


created  and  upheld  for  many  centimes  not  only  at  Rome 
but  all  over  Italy  and  in  many  parts  of  Greece. 

Very  gradually  however,  some  merchants  succeeded  in 
becoming  rich/4  On  the  other  hand,  as  we  prove  in  our 
sketch  of  Spartacus,  the  older  slave  system  which  still 
continued  under  the  law  of  Lycurgus  in  Sparta,  un¬ 
derwent  a  revival  in  Italy.  By  the  plan  of  Niima  Pompil- 
ious,  which  was  the  true  ancient  trade  union  system,  there 
was  no  way  for  an  aristocrat  to  conduct  business  of 
any  kind  without  polluting  himself  by  contract  with  the 
proletaries.  He  could,  by  owning  the  slaves,  job  them  to 
managers  of  genius,  themselves  of  the  laboring  class,  some 
to  a  boss  farmer,  some  to  a  miller,  some  to  a  wagoner,  some 
to  a  manufacturer,  and  thus,  without  himself  touching  his 
own  property,  gratify  his  desire  of  profit,  indirectly, 
through  the  labor  of  his  slaves.  We  are  told  that  Craa- 
sus  bought  up  as  great  a  number  as  500  slaves  at  a  time; 
that  Nicias  owned  1,000;  that  Claudius  owned  as  many  as 
4,116  and  Athens  owned  and  hired  out  no  less  than  100- 
000  slaves ! 46  But  these  things  did  not  occur  in  Italy  until 
the  decline  through  Roman  lr  istility,  of  the  seven  centur¬ 
ies  of  trade  unionism,  which  began  in  high  antiquity,  and 
which  had  been  acknowledged  and  incorporated  as  an  in¬ 
dustrial  system  of  the  state  under  Numa,  nearly  700  years 
before  Christ  and  did  not  give  up  its  foothold  without  one 
of  the  most  terrible  and  protected  agrarian  and  servile 
struggles  recorded  or  unrecorded  in  the  vicissitudes  of 
the  world.  Nor  must  the  remark  be  forgotten  that  dur¬ 
ing  all  the  centuries  through  which  this  trade  unionism 
existed  the  golden  era  of  prosperity  and  general  happiness 
was  at  its  highest  so  far  as  labor  was  concerned. 

But  this  prosperity  and  happiness  will  be  better  under¬ 
stood  as  we  enumerate,  one  by  one,  the  links  of  trada 
unions  which  formed  the  great  chain  of  industrial  weaL 
While  we  are  doing  this  it  may  be  well  to  keep  constantly 
in  mind  the  suggestion,  together  with  its  proofs,  that  la¬ 
bor  organization  for  protection,  co-operation,  resistance 
and  mutual  improvement  is  always  the  best  standard  by 

44  Consult  Drnmann,  A  r  belter  und  Communistm  m  Oruchenland  und  »*. 
31:  “  Es  verminderte  die  geringscbammg  nicht  mit  welcher  mar*  euf  die  Arbeit*! 
sah,  dass  mehrere  beriihmte  Manner  do  rch  ibre  lie  bur;  Oder  dare*  lire  tr&toro 
Beschaftigung  diesein  Stande  an^ehorten.” 

For  these  statistics,  see  Bucher,  S.  35-0.  Sch&cite&cfe,  ita&edU 
au/stcuid ,  S.  1-3.  Siefert,  Sicilitdic  SklavcnkrieQc,  S.  10-15- 


THE  “  OTHER  SIDE*' 


36] 


which  to  measure  the  intensity  of  true  civilization.  When 
the  law  forbidding  these  organizations  struck  the  prole¬ 
taries,  one-half  a  century  before  Christ,  their  decline  be¬ 
gan  ;  and  this  decline  was  a  powerful  cause  of  the  fall  of 
the  Roman  empire. 

The  old  system  of  abject  slavery  pre-existing  in  the 
higher  antiquity,  gradually  reappeared  with  the  great 
Roman  Conquests  and  usurped  the  foundations  of  the 
happier  unions  with  its  malignant  concomitants  of  de¬ 
graded  labor  under  the  lash  of  an  overseer  on  the  one 
hand,  and  with  its  millionare  politicians,  schemers  and 
voluptuaries  on  the  other.  Corruption  followed.  Hope 
fled  with  liberty.  Thrift  disintegrated  into  pestilential 
reservoirs  of  vice.  Rome  fell  into  a  mass  of  corruption. 

It  is  not  at  all  strange,  nor  to  be  wondered  at  that  the 
poor  who  constituted  the  laboring  class,  should  keenly 
feel  their  degrading  exclusion  from  the  Eleusinian  Mys¬ 
teries.  N or  is  it  at  all  to  be  wondered  at  if  we  find  Plu¬ 
tarch  reciting  to  us  his  account  of  what  must  have  been 
a  gigantic  uprising  of  these  people  1,180  years  before 
Christ,  under  Menestheus,  as  under  Aristonicus  in  Asia 
Minor,  1,047  years  afterward  they  rose  against  similar  so¬ 
cial  degradations.  Heaven  to  those  poor  people  was  a 
boon  much  nearer  and  more  visible  than  at  the  present 
day.  They  imagined  the  earth  to  be  flat.  On  this  side 
all  were  mortal ;  on  the  other  immortal.  Some  of  the  im¬ 
mortal  happy  had  power  to  come  from  the  other  side  to 
this.  Here  from  Mount  Olympus  they  assumed  charge  of 
the  welfare  of  mortals.  Many  believed  the  flat  earth  so 
thin  that  rivers  meandered  from  one  to  the  other.  Be¬ 
tween  the  two  surfaces  there  were  surging  floods  of  hor¬ 
rid  smoke  and  steaming,  lurid  waters  or  pits  of  fiery  as- 
phaltum  for  the  wicked,  as  well  as  bright,  purling  streams 
sparkling  and  cool  for  the  just,  leaving  the  banks  and 
plains  that  were  covered  with  verdure  and  peopled  with 
enchanting  birds  and  game. 

Let  the  mover  of  the  modern  labor  agitation  who  treats 
with  scorn  the  author  who  mixes  religion  with  a  history 
of  the  ancient,  reconsider.  He  must  go  back  to  them  as 
they  really  were,  poor  down-trodden,  superstitious,  cred¬ 
ulous  and  ignorant  of  facts  while  misled  by  priests.  They 
believed  heaven  was  so  near  by  lineal  measure  that  they 


352 


ORGANIZATION. . 


often  imagined  they  cm  1 1  hear  the  melodious  voices  of  the 
blessed  on  the  other  sides ;  yet  while  they  had  nothing  on 
this  side  to  live  for  and  their  grasping  imagination  over¬ 
heard  and  dwelt  upon  a  future  world  beyond  this  “vale 
of  tears,”  they  found  themselve  shut  out  from  all  hope.  The 
workman  in  the  modern  field  of  labor  agitation  certainly 
has  but  a  gloomy  foretaste  in  anything  further  than  his 
future  natural  life.  His  predecessors  have  gone  before 
with  the  axe  and  sickle  of  reason  and  past  experience, 
tools  of  the  thus  intellectual  pioneer.  Their  incomput¬ 
able  toil  has,  with  investigation  and  experiment,  with  re¬ 
peated  millions  of  practical  works,  cleared  away  the  mythic 
film  of  priestcraft  and  superstitious  belief.  The  earth 
is  now  a  globe.  The  miner  knows  this;  for  the  deeper  he 
descends  the  more  unendurable  the  heat.  Who  wants  now 
to  descend  to  heaven  ?  Who  wishes  to  go  to  the  other 
side,  to  China — a  race  groveling,  mortal  and  inferior,  rather 
than  that  of  the  ancients,  beautiful  seraphic,  melodious, 
immortal.  Who  now  wants  to  visit  the  ouranus  of  old 
Plato  in  the  vaulted  dome  of  heaven  ?  Who  wants  to  rise 
when  everybody  knows  that  instead  of  a  region  of  the  im¬ 
mortal  happy  the  farther  one  mounts  the  more  uninhabit¬ 
able,  more  frigid  more  stifling  the  ethers  of  space  ?  La¬ 
bor’s  own  skillful  hand  has  caused  all  this  metamorphosis 
in  the  human  mind  and  forced  it  and  is  still  forcing  it  out 
of  its  ignorant  soarings  and  credence-ravings  down  to  a 
cognizance  of  the  earthly  things  that  are. 

No,  we  must  picture  the  life  of  the  ancient  lowly  as  it 
really  was  in  all  its  cushioned  imagination,  in  all  its  yearn¬ 
ings  to  get  there  by  the  beautiful  river,  its  green  carpets 
on  the  other  side  where  the  wicked  ceased  from  troubling 
and  the  weary  were  at  rest ;  and  those  otherwise  incom¬ 
prehensible,  r eligio -practical  associations  can  be  under¬ 
stood  and  their  full  function  appreciated  only  by  our 
throwing  off  our  own  prejudice  and  contemplating  them 
as  they  really  were.  This  we  propose  to  do. 


INSCRIPTION  AT  LANUV1VM. 


353 


L-  CEIONIO.  COMMODO.  SEX. 
VETULENO.  CIVICA.  POMPE- 
IANO.  COS.  A.  D.  V.  IDUS.  IUN. 


Lanuvi  in  Municipio  in  Templo  Antinoi  in  Quo  L.  Caesennius  Rufus 

tn  the  temple  of  Antince,  city  of  Lavinia,  where  L.  Csesennius  RufuB 

Diet.  III.  et  patronus  Municipi  conventum  haberi  jusserat 

spokesman  and  guardian  of  the  town,  ordered  an  association  formed,  through 

£er.  L.  Porapeium 

i.  Pompey 


F . am.  QQ.  Cultorom  Dianae,et  Antinoi,  Pol¬ 
and  F . under  tutelary  eare  of  Diana  and  Antinoe,  promising  to  con* 


licitus  est  se 

tribute  towards  it 

in  annum  daturum  eis  ex  liberalitate  sua  Hs.  Xv.  M.  N.  usum 

ont  of  his  pnrse  within  a  given  year  a  sum  of  ffiOO  for  use  of  the  union. 

Die  natalis  Dianae  Idib.  Aug.  Hs.  COCO.  N.  et  die  natalis  An- 

On  Diana’s  birthday,  the  Ida  of  August,  and  birthday  of  Antinoe,  $16  more. 

tinoi  V.  K. 

Decemb.  Hs.  OCCC.  N.  Et  praecepit  legem  ab  ipais  con- 

In  the  month  of  December^  flft.  He  also  prescribes  a  law  regulating  the 

stitutam  sub  tetra- 

the  union  which  is 

stilo  Antinoi  parte  interiori  perscribi  in  verba  infra  soripta. 

written  on  the  inside  of  the  4  columned  pillar  in  words  as  recorded  beam: 

M.  Antonio  Hibero  P.  Mummio  Sisenna  Cos.  X.  Ian.  Collegium 

During  the  consulship  of  M.  Antonias  Hiberas  and  P.  Mummint  the 

Salutare  Dianae 

Et  Antinoi  constitutum,  L.  Caesennio  L.  F.  Quir. 

mutual  benefit  society  of  Diana  and  Antinm  was  organised  bar 

Rufo  Diet  III.  IDEMQ.  PATR. 

L.  Ceesennius  Rufus,  its  recognised  patron. 

KAPUT-  EX.  S.  C.  P.R. 

Designation.  Written  by  order  of  the  Prefect. 

Qnibns  coire  convenire  collegiumqne  hebere  liceat.  Qui  stipem 

It  is  permitted  that  all  wishing  to  organise  themselves,  may  do  so. 

menstruam  conferre  volent  in  Funera  II  in  collegium  coeant  neq. 

Any  one  desiring  to  pay  monthly  dues  of  8  cents  to  the  Funeral  fund  may 

snb  specie  eius  collegi  nisi  semel  inmense  coeant  conferendi  causa, 

attend  the  meetings  twice  a  month  if  the  objects  of  such  meetings  be  th« 


354 


ORGANIZATION. 


unde  defunct!  sepeliantur 

burying  of  the  dead. 

Quod  faustum  felix  salutareq.  sit  imp.  Caesari  Traiano  Hadriano 

Whatsoever  is  favorable,  happy  and  healthful  for  the  emperors,  Trojan,  Adrian 

Aug.  totiusqne 

and  the  whole  house  of  the  Caesars, 

domus  August  nostris  eollegioq.  nostro;  et  bene  adque  in¬ 
will  also  be  good  for  us  and  our  society ;  and  we  should  perform  well  and 

dustrie  contraxerimus,  nt 

industriously  our  duty  that  we  may 

exitus  eoruir.  honeste  prosequamur.  Itaq.  bene  conferendo 

honestly  reach  the  end.  So  ought  we  universally  to  agree,  that  we  may 

universi  consentire 

grow  old  in  union. 

debemus,  ut  longo  tempore  inveterescere  possimus. 

Tuqui  novos  in  boo  collogio  intrare  voles,  prius  legem  perlegeeteic 

O  thou  who  wouldst  bring  initiates  into  this  union,  read  well  these  rules,  that 

intra,  ne  postmodum  queraris  aut  controversiam  relinquas. 

thouleavest  no  controversy  with  thy  heirs! 

LEX  COLLEGE 

Law  of  the  Union. 

Placuit  universis,  ut  quisquis  in  hoc  collegium  intrare  voluerit, 

Be  it  ordered  in  presence  of  all  men :  That  whosoever  may  desire  to  Join  this 

dabit  kapitulari  nomine. 

union  shall  give  to  the  Secretary-Treasurer 

HS.  C.  X.  et  vini  boni  amphoram;  item  in  menses  sing.  A. 
his  address,  an  initiation  fee  of  $4,  and  a  flagon  of  good  vine;  ana  like 

V.  Item  placuit,  ut  quisquis  mensib. 

wise  4  cents  monthly  dues.  It  lb  ordered  that 

contin  enter  non  pariaverit  et  ei  humanitus  accident,  eius  ra 

whoever  fails  to  settle  dues  continuously  for  months,  remaining  a  member 

t.io  funeris  non  habebitur, 

by  graca,  will  not  have  the  right  of  burial,  even 

etiam  si  testamentum  factum  habuerit. 

though  he  may  have  willed  to  the  association  his  property. 

'tern  placuit  quisquis  ex  hoc  corpore  N.  pariatus  eum  decesserit 

Be  it  ordered  that  whoever  dies,  not  in  arrears  to  the  order  let  his  $4,  be  ro- 

sequentur  ex  area  HS.  CCCC.  N.  ex  qua  summa  decedent 

turned  from  the  treasury  as  expenses  of  burial. 

exequiari  nomine  HS.  I.  N.  qui  ad  Rogus  dividentur.  Exe- 

One  sesterce  shall  be  divided  at  the  funeral  pile.  But  the  ceremony  must 

qmae  autom  pedihus  fungentur. 

be  performed  on  foot. 


INSCRIPTION  AT  LANUVIUM. 


855 


Item  placuit,  quisquis  a  munioipio  ultra  miliar.  XX.  decesserit 

Be  it  ordered,  that  whenever  a  member  dies  at  a  distance  of  20  miles  from  the 

et  nuntiatum  fuerit,  eo  exire  debebunt  elec  Li  ex  corpore  N. 

city,  it  shall  be  reported,  a  permit  taken  and  3,  elected  from  among  the 

homines  tres,  qui  funeris  ejus  curam  agant  et  rationem  po- 

members,  be  sent  to  see  to  it.  Should  it  be  found  that  there  was  any  de- 

pnlo  reddere  debebunt,  sine  dolo  malo.  Si  quit  in  eis  fraudis 
ception,  then  as  much  as  four-fold  the  amount  shall  be  exacted  as  a  fine. 

Causa,  inventum  fuerit,  eis  multa  esto  qnadruplum. 

by  reason  of  such  injustice. 

Quibus  sing,  minimus  dabitur;  hoc  amplius  viatici  nomine  citro 

Those  to  whom  money  is  given,  are  to  receive  it  as  follows :  If  it  be  more 

sing.  HS.  XX.  N.  quod  longius  quam  intra  mill.  XX.  de- 
than  the  20  miles,  the  sum  shall  be  for  each,  20  sesterces.  But  if  tbe 

cesserit  et  nuntiari  non  potuerit,  turn  is  qui  eum  funeraverit 
member  dies  at  a  greater  di>tanc  j  than  20  miles,  and  it  cannot  be  an- 

testato  tabulis  signati  sigillis  civium  Romanorum  ¥11.  et 

nounced,  then  whoever  attends  to  the  funeral  must  send  an  account, 

probata  causa,  funeraticium  ejus;  satio  dato  ab  eis  nemenem 

signed  and  bearing  the  seal  of  7  Roman  citizens ;  and  when  the  case 

petiturum,  deduct  is  commodis  et  exequiano,  e  lege  collegh 
has  been  proved,  and  the  funeral  expenses  found  reasonable,  no  one 

dari  sibi  petat. 

objecting,  hn  pay  shall  be  disbursed  from  the  treasury  if  he  asks  Vt. 

A  nostro  collegio  dolus  malus  abesto  neque  patrono  neque  patro- 

Let  there  bo  no craftiness  in  our  union.  Neither  patron  nor  patroness  mag* 

nae,  neque  domino  neque  dominie  neque  creditor!  ex  hoc  col¬ 

ter  nor  mistress,  nor  even  ciedi  tor,  shall  make  any  demand,  account 

legio  ulla  petitio  esto  nisi  qui  testamento  heres  nominatus  est. 

or  claim  whatever,  or  anybody  else,  except  him  who  is  elected  heir. 

Si  quis  intestatus  deeesserit,  is,  arbitrio  quinq.  et  populi  funerab 

If  any  one  die  without  children,  five  sesterces  shall  be  given  &  all  attend. 

Item  placuit,  quisquis  ex  hoc  collegio  servus  defunctus  fuerit,  et 
Be  it  ordered  that  whoever  dies  a  member,  being  a  slave,  and  his  body  io 

corpus  ejus  a  domino  dominave  inquietate  sepulturae  datum 

unwillingly  given  up  for  sepulture  by  master  or  mistress  who  will  not 

non  fuerit  neque  tabella,  ei  funus  imaginarium  fie t. 
permit  a  registration,  an  imaginary  funeral  shall  beheld. 

Item  nlacuit,  quisquis  ex  quacumque  causa  mortem  sibi  adsciverit, 

Be  it  ordered  that  whoever  commits  suicide  from  any  cause,  for  this  reason 

ejus  ratio  funeris  non  habebitur. 

no  uneral  can  be  held. 


350 


ORGANIZATION. 


Item  placait,  ut  quisqnis  Fcrvus  ex  hoc  oollegio  liber  factus  fneril 
Be  it  ordereo  that  whatever  slave  is  set  free  by  this  union,  he  shall  contrib- 

/  is  dare  debebit  vini  boni  amphoram. 
ute  a  flagon  of  good  wine. 


Item  placuit,  quisqnis  macrister  suo  anno  erit  ex  ordine  fllbi  ad 
It  is  ordered  that  whatever  manager  who  during  his  year,  shall  not  attend  the 

csenam  faciendam,  etnon  observaverifc  neque  fecerit,  is  arose 
ceremony  nor  observe,  nor  perform  functions,  shall  pay  a  fine  of  80  gee- 

inferet  HS.  XXX.  N.  et  insequens  ejus  dare  debebit  et  ia 
terces  Into  the  treasury  and  the  place  shall  be  forfeited  to  his  atv> 

ejns  loco  restituere  debebit. 
cessor. 


ORDO  CENARUM  VIII.  ID  MAR. 

Order  of  the  feasts,  on  the  8th.,  Ides  of  March  : 


NATALI  CgESENNI . PATRIS  Y.  K  DEO. 

NAT.  ANTONOI  IDIB.  AUG  NATALI  DIANNE  ET  OOL- 

LEGII  XIII.  K.  SEPT.  JAN.  NATALI  L.  0A5SENNJ 
EUEI  PATE.  MUNIO. 


Masristri  cffinarum  ox  ordine  albi  facta  quo  ordine  homines  qua- 
The  managers  of  the  feasts  established  by  the  order,  will  place  the  men,  4  at  a 

terni  ponere  debebunt:  vini  boni  amphoras  singulas,  et 
time,  in  their  order:  each  contributing  a  flask  of  good  wine  and  a  loaf  of 

pane?  A.  Ii  qui  numerus  collegi  fuerit  et  sardas  numero 
best  broad,  and  each,  four  pickled  sardines  eervod  hot  In  proper 

quatuor  strationem  ealdam  cum  ministerio. 
dishes. 


INSCRIPTION  AT  LANUVIUM. 


357 


[tem  placuit,  ut  quisquis  quinquennalis  in  hoc  collegio  factus 

fuerit,  a  sigillis  eius  temporis,  quo  quinquennalis  erit,  irn- 
munis  esse  debebit,  et  ei  ex  omnibus  divisonibus  partes 
duplas  dari.  Item  seribae  et  viatori  a  sigillis  vacantibus  par¬ 
tes  ex  omni  divisione  sesquiplas  dari  placuit 

Item  placuit,  ut  quisquis  quinquennalitatem  gesserit  integre,  et 

ob  honorem  partes  sesquiplas  ex  omni  re  dari,  ut  et  reliqui 
recte  faciendo  idem  sperent. 

Item  placuit,  si  quis  quid  queri  aut  referre  volet,  in  conventu  re- 
ferant,  ut  quieti  et  hilares  diebus  sollemnibus  epulemnr. 

Item  placuit,  ut  quisquis  seditionis  causa  de  loco  in  alium  locum 
transient,  ei  multa  esto  HS.  I  III.  N.  Si  quis  autem  in  ob- 
probrium  alteralterius  dixerit,  aut  tumultuatus  fuerit,  ei 
multa  esto  HS.  N.  Si  quis  quinquennali  inter  epulas  obpro- 
briurn  aut  quid  contumeliose  dixerit,  ei  multa  esto  HS.  XX. 
N. 

Item  placuit,  ut  quinquennalis  sui  cuiusque  temporis  diebus  sol¬ 
lemnibus  ture  et  vino  supplicet  et  ceteris  officiis  albatus 
fungatur,  et  diebus  natalium  Dianae  et  Antinoi  oleum  col- 

legio  in  balineo  publico  ponat  antequam  epulentur. 


The  remarkable  features  of  this  college  are  that  under 

the  guise  of  piety,  and  of  being  a  burial  and  mutual  bene¬ 
fit  society,  it  was  used  to  emancipate  slaves.  That  it  was 


358 


ORGANIZATION. 


sas^rjo-ip. 


FiMAHCUS  •  ANTONI  LJ  a. 


lsho  wingvtheir = <5wm 


&  trade  or  labor  anion  is  shown  by  its  being  devoted  to 
securing  good  places  to  work. 

Everywhere  the  severity  of  the  law  is  apparent.  Rome 
had  a  mortal  fear  of  labor  riot3  and  uprisings  and  hence  the 
many  fines  which  stood  as  a  coustant  menace,  acting  as  a 
check  against  insubordination.  It  was  difficult  to  obtain  a 
privilege  or  charter  to  organize  one  of  these  labor  unions, 
and  consequently  where  they  possessed  one,  it  was  prized 
as  a  gem  of  great  value;  which  may  account  for  their  great 
age,  found  in  some  cases  to  have  been  four  or  five  hundred 
years. 

The  love  of  the  Latin  race  for  pleasures  is  observable  all 
through.  They  used  this  great  union  or  commune  for  that 
purpose  ;  but  they  are  seen  in  these  rules  and  regulations, 
to  have  held  uppermost  a  peculiar  system  of  culture  tend¬ 
ing  toward  ultimate  emancipation  from  the  lowly  and  re¬ 
stricted  condition  in  which  they  were  held  by  the  law  and 
the  police. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


THE  CATEGORIES. 

THE  GREAT  ECONOMIC  ORGANIZATIONS. 

Ancient  Fedeeations  of  Labor — How  they  were  Employed  by 
the  Government — Nomenclature  of  the  Brotherhoods — Cat¬ 
egories  of  King  Numa— Varieties  and  Ramifications — The 
Masons,  Stonecutters  and  Bricklayers — Federation  for  Mu¬ 
tual  Advantages — List  of  the  35  Trade  Unions,  under  the 
Jus  Coeundi. 

Ntjma  Pompilius,  the  first  king  after  Romulus,  reoog 
nized  trade  unions  even  before  Solon  of  Athens,  who  fol¬ 
lowed  rather  than  led  in  this  scheme  as  a  measure  of  po¬ 
litical  economy.1  They  had,  however,  already  existed,  per¬ 
haps  thousands  of  years  before  receiving  any  recognition 
at  all.  One  of  the  first  of  importance  legalized  by  these 
lawgivers  was  the  fraternity  of  builders. 

They  were  called  in  Greek,  the  technical  and  in  Latin 
tignarii.  It  is  evident  from  Plutarch,  that  he  intended 
this  word  to  include  also  the  mason.2  If,  however,  all  the 
building  trades  were  organized  into  one  body  or  union, 
they  were  verv  different  from  trade  unions  of  our  day. 
Besides,  had  Plutarch  intended  to  convey  the  idea  that 
all  the  building  trades  were  united  into  one  under  Numa 
he  would,  it  seems  to  us,  have  used  the  still  morti  compre¬ 
hensive  Greek  term  technites  which  expresses  it.  Again 
its  Latin  synonym  found  by  Mommsen,  proves  that  Numa’a 

1  Plutarch, Numal.  Numa  followed  Romulus  to  the  throne,  about  690  years 
before  Christ  Plutarch's  surest  ion  that  he  might  have  personally  known  Py- 
thagorus  and  that  he  had  been  brought  up  among  the  Pythagorean  Greek  settle¬ 
ments  of  Italy  which  were  coinmunL-tical  in  character  looks  exceedingly  plausi 
ble. 

-  See  Wm.  Laughorne’s  tr.  of  Plutarch,  in  Numa. 


3G0 


ANCIENT  FEDERATION  OF  LABOR . 


union  was  that  of  workers  in  metal  and  wood.*  In  those 
times  the  mountains  back  of  Rome  produced  dense  for¬ 
ests,  which  were  not  swept  away  by  machinery  with  the 
rapidity  of  modeijn  art.  The  people,  on  account  of  wars, 
want  of  medical  science,  comparative  abstinence  from 
marriage,  dissoluteness  of  the  rich,  hardships  of  the  poor, 
did  not  multiply  rapidly.  In  consequence  the  forests  pro¬ 
duced  new  trees  as  fast  as  they  were  cut  away  by  the 
workmen.  Rome  was  mostly  built  of  wooden  houses ;  and 
no  doubt  there  was  an  abundance  of  work  for  the  carpen¬ 
ters.  All  the  great  public  buildings  were  constructed  by 
trade  unions  for  the  state,  direct — that  is,  with  contract¬ 
ors  or  middlemen,  and  the  carpenters’  union  used  to  take 
charge  of  the  woodwork.  The  Ager  public  us 4  had  to  be 
furnished  with  houses  for  the  Gentry.  Honorary  seats 
were  made  by  these  fabri  tignariorum,  such  as  the  splendid 
bisellia 8  or  cushions  of  the  gods.  The  fine  villas  of  wealthy 
gentlemen8  who  had  a  custom  of  turning  public  moneys 
and  lands  to  their  own  account  were  work  of  their  art. 
In  fact  this  was  common  from  the  highest  antiquity  before 
the  division  of  the  gentes  into  curse  and  'tribes.  Thus 
it  was  not  considered  a  breach  of  political  rule  to  divert 
the  public  funds,  to  a  certain  extent,  to  the  building  or  re¬ 
pairing  of  their  own  fine  residences ;  And  this  work  was 
performed  by  the  builders’  unions. 

There  were  two  names  under  which  the  wood-workers 
of  the  building  trades  were  known.  These  were  the 
dendrophori,  mentioned  in  the  code  of  Theodosius7  as 


8  Mommsen,  De  Collegiis  et  Sodaliciit  Romanorwn,  pp.  29  80,  “Inter  classes 
nrimam  et  seenndam  interject®  erant  centuria  fabrum  tignariorum  et  centurla 
fabrum  torariorum,  sive,  ut  Dionysium  (VII.  59)  seqnamnr:  Svo  \6\oi.  re* rorotv 

K*i  xa\KOTVTTu>i>  Ka  1  ocroi  aAAot  noKepuicinv  epytav  J]aav  \eipoTeyva i. 

4  We  prefer  to  use  this  Latin  term  because  it  saves  explanatory  words  neces¬ 
sary  to  qualify  the  meaning  of  the  English  word  “land.”  It  means  common 
lands  belonging  to  the  government,  on  which  the  workingmen  had  no  claim  as 
citizens.  The  propensity  of  the  Roman  building  trades  to  organize  in  protec¬ 
tive  societ'es  is  richly  illustrate!  in  an  article  written  by  Mr.  Rogers  ana  form¬ 
ing  a  chapter  in  a  large  work  on  labor  edited  by  Mr.  Geo.  E.  McNeill,  Boat.  1887, 
entitled  •  The  Building  Trades,'”  Mr.  Rogers,  (pp.  335  -7),  shows  that  this  pro¬ 
clivity  of  the  ancient  Romans  for  organizing  into  communes  was  never  lost  even 
in  far  oil  Kent,  sticking  to  the  English  people  to  this  day,  furnishes  a  formid¬ 
able  argument  against  the  assumption  that  the  Saxon  Role  absolutely  superseded 
that  of  the  earlier  inhabitants. 

5  Fabretti  Inscriptiones  Antiques  ExpUccMc,  p.  170,  824.  p.  227,  604.  Grot- 
675,3.  Also  Orel!,  No.  4,055. 

e  Our  own  word  “gentleman  ”  is  directly  derived  from  the  Latin  word  g*na, 
or  high  and  respectable  family.  If  we  call  the  human  race  an  4  Order,”  the  gentes 

may  be  considered  a  “  genus.” 

T  Codex  Theodosii,  14,  8  Also  Orell,  IncrlpUcnes  Latinarum  CoUectio,  Nos. 


TRADE  UNIONS  SUPPRESSED. 


U\ 

veritable  trade  unions,  and  the  tignarii  who  were  the  true 
carpenters  and  joiners.  As  we  construe  the  signification 
of  these  two  terms  from  the  stone  monuments  and  slabs 
on  which  they  are  found  engraved  and  not  as  found  in  the 
dictionaries,  we  conclude  that  the  dendrophori  must  have 
been  the  heavy  lumbermen  and  framers.  They  cut  and 
hewed  the  heavy  timbers  both  for  buildings  and  ships; 
while  the  tignarii  did  the  lighter  work.  One  thing  is  cer¬ 
tain  ;  they  both  occur  together  in  many  of  the  inscriptions.' 
This  class  of  trade  unions  was  considered  necessary  to  the 
welfare  of  the  state;  and  was  exempted  from  being  sup¬ 
pressed  when,  in  B.  C.  58,  the  conspiracy  laws  were  put 
in  operation  by  Csesar ;  although  so  much  suspicion  rested 
upon  them  that  they  were  watched  with  a  jealous  eye  by 
the  officers  of  the  law  and  as  appears,  much  of  their  former 
vitality  was  crushed  out.  They  had  existed  from  the  time 
of  Numa  in  Rome,  and  of  Solon  at  Athens,  in  full  strength 
and  vigor.  At  the  time  of  their  suppression  by  restrictive 
laws  nearly  all  the  Grecian  territory,  especially  that  of  At¬ 
tica,  including  Athens,  the  Piraeus,  Eleusis  and  all  the  pop¬ 
ulous  towns  where  they  are  known  to  have  existed  in  great 
numbers,  belonged  to  Rome,  then  mistress  of  the  world. 

It  must  have  been  a  very  strange  experience  for  a  great 
people  to  undergo.  Here  was  a  system  of  manufacture 
and  repairs  of  immemorable  age,  authorized  by  the  most 
highly  esteemed  lawgivers,  one  of  whom  was  one  of  the 
seven  wise  men  of  Greece.  It  had  been  known  by  the 
chronicles  for  fully  600  years,  and,  though  it  performed 
duties  which  by  the  haughty  and  foolish  were  considered 
degrading,  and  upon  which  there  rested  a  taint,  yet  it  was 
an  important  institution,  taking  charge  of  indispensable 
affairs  of  public  as  well  as  of  private  life.  All  at  once  it 
was  suppressed.  That  the  result  was  a  dangerous  con¬ 
vulsion  cannot  be  wondered  at. 

Gruter  cites  a  college  of  dendrophori 9  who  used  to  build 

8,741,  4,082,  8,349,  7,330,  7,145,  3,888,  5,118,4,055,  0,037,  7018,  7,018,  0,031, 
6,073,  0,590,  911,  4,109,  7,194,  7,197,  4,069,  Each  of  these  19  number#,  repre¬ 
sents  a  collegium  or  trade  union  of  wood-workers  The  inscriptions  were  found 
In  as  many  places  nearly  as  there  are  numbers. 

s  Orell.  4,084,  “Collegium  Fabrorum  Navalium . Tune  e*lp*a  con- 

ditione  fabr.  Tig.  Pisaurensium.”  Pisaurnm  was  an  Umbrian  town  at  the  tnoatlj 
of  the  navigable  Pisaurus,  Inscr.  4,160  Faber  Tignariorum  and  Coll.  Dendru- 
phorum  are  nored  together. 

a  Gruterius,  Inscrlption.es  Antigua  Totius  Orbis  liomanorum,  175,  & 


562  CATEGORIES  OF  TRADE  FEDERATIONS. 


houses  and  ships  or  boats  for  the  society  of  freight  boat¬ 
men  located  at  Rome.  He  also  gives  one  which  Orelli 
quotes,  taken  on  a  stone  slab  in  times  as  late  as  J  ustinian.10 
The  word  epulantur  conveying  the  idea  of  entertainment, 
shows  that  these  schools  of  the  workingmen  sometimes 
used  their  organization  as  a  means  of  mutual  enjoyment. 
Especially  was  this  the  case  among  the  Greek  fraternities 
which  we  describe  in  their  place.  After  the  great  strug¬ 
gle  with  Spartacus,  the  right  of  organization  was  severely 
restricted  by  the  Roman  law;  and  it  became  necessary 
for  the  uni  ms,  in  order  to  exist  at  all,  to  assume  two  forms 
oi  dissimulation  by  which  to  parry  the  attacks  of  enemies 
who  had  recourse  to  these  conspiracy  laws  in  order  to 
gratify  their  whims  of  revenge,  or  to  fortify  their  own 
schemes  of  making  money  through  the  cheap  labor  of  the 
slave  system  which  Rome  in  the  later  days  had  revived, 
and  which  such  enemies  of  organized  labor  as  Cicero  or 
Crassus,  were  pushing  with  an  almost  fierce  determination, 
on  pretense  of  restoring  the  ancient  purity  of  religion, 
family  and  vested  rights.  We  have  noted  that  certain 
kinds  of  organizations  were  permitted.11  Among  these 
were  collegia  sancta,  or  those  unions  and  fraternities  given 
to  holy  or  pious  purposes.  So  some  of  these  were  shrewd 
enough  to  combine  business  with  holiness  and  thus  shield 
themselves  from  their  pursuers.12  Mommsen  speaks  of 
them  in  clearest  terms  which  leave  no  doubt  whatever  re¬ 
garding  the  mysterious  procedure 13  of  those  old  Roman 
lawyers  who  were  determined  to  suppress  the  trade  unions, 
root  and  branch,  in  order  to  reinstitute  slavery,  the  most 
ancient  form  of  labor  known  to  their  religion,  which  had 


10  We  quote  the  Latin  as  given  by  Orell.,  No.  4,088.  “  Ex  S.  C.  Schola  Aug. 
Collegii  Fabrorum  Tignariorum  impendiis  ipsorum  ab  inckoato  exstructo,  solo 
dato  ab  T.  Fnrio  pritnogeuio  qui  et  dsd'C.  ejus  US.  X.  N.  ded.  ex  cujns  summ. 
redit,  omnibus  annis  X.  1.  iv.  August  die  uatalis  sui,  epulautur.”  Gruter,  169,  0 

11  DiOU.  XXXVIII.  13,  Antiquitates,  says:  “  Ta  eraifjiKa . oi/Ta  /Aev 

rov  a px.a.Lov  /cara.Audej'Ta  Se  \P bvov  ru'd.”  Asconius  1.  C.  Comrnent,  says :  “Col¬ 
legia  sunt  sublata  printer  pauca  atquc  ceria  ou®  utilitas  civitatis  desiderassit 
qum  sint  fabrorum  fictorumque.’’  These  saved  were  Pagan  image  makers  who 
wrought  ihe  religious  devices,  q.  v. 

™  Couiulures  autem  ob  finei  ejusmodi  instituebantur  collegia:  religionis  ante 
omnia  causa ,  ut,  qui  idem  vitae  genus  essent  amplexi,  iisdem  quoque  sacris  uter- 
uuter.”  etc.,  etc.  Oreil.  VII.  p,  244-  Imci\  Latin  Collectio. 

18  Mommsen.  De  Coll,  et  Sodal.  Rom.,  pp.  87-88,  says:  “Ipsa  ilia  simulata 
(referring  to  lex.  3,  Digest,  de  extr.  crim.  XLVII,  11. )  religio  senatum  piomovit 
tu  jus  coeuudi  tolleret  Explicanda  sunt  ilia  verba  de  coitionibus  in  templis  ad 
rein  dtvinam  faciendum,  quae  etsi  neutiquam  contra  SOtum  erant,  facile  tamen 
in  I'raudeai  SCti  usurpari  poterant  ’ 


CONFLICT  AGAINST  CHEAP  LABOR.  363 


founded  their  patrimony,  their  law  of  entailment  through 
primogeniture  and  their  system  of  grandees  and  of  slaves. 
Numa  and  Solon  had  been  these  fellows’  enemies;  Lycur- 
gus  their  friend.  Trade  unionism  the  child  of  wills  and 
manumissions,  had  first  come  among  them,  a  spontaneous 
growth.  It  cradled  and  matured  human  sympathy.  It 
had  proved  itself  innocent,  enterprising  and  good.  It  had 
succeeded  in  becoming  legalized  by  those  two  powerful 
princes — a  mighty  stride.  But  it  had,  as  the  gens  families 
fancied,  usurped  the  ancient  and  holy  system  of  slavery 
and  thus  interfered — by  substituting  communism — with 
their  vested  individual  rights.14  On  account,  probably,  of 
their  superstition,  Cicero,  Caesar  and  the  rest,  after  they 
had  put  down  Clodius  the  intrepid  orator  and  tribune  who 
had  restored  the  old  and  created  new,16  excepted  such  of 
the  carpenters  and  joiners  or  cabinet-makers’  unions  as 
confined  their  labor  to  manufacturing  all  sorts  of  wooden 
idols,  which  in  those  days,  were  sometimes  very  large,  and 
built  for  the  temples,  the  fanes  and  the  family  altars.  It 
it  also  quite  likely  that  a  few  unions  devoted  to  the  car¬ 
penter  work  on  the  temples  and  the  aedes  sanctae ,  were 
saved.  But  we  ascend  from  these  cruel  days  of  moribund 
Rome  to  an  earlier  and  brighter  age. 

14  We  have  repeatedly  mentioned  the  impossibility,  among  the  Indo-Euro  • 
pean  Greeks  and  Italians,  of  there  ever  having  existed  in  those  peninsulas  a  com¬ 
munistic,  or  even  patriarchal  form  of  government.  The  bent  of  labor  communes 
was  towards  it  but  they  never  succeeded  in  breaking  down  the  power  of  the  com¬ 
petitive  system  :  and  it  rules  to  this  day.  The  oldest  records  of  any  kind  shedding 
light,  confirm  the  idea  that  originally  the  despotic  form  of  government  prevailed; 
the  father  paterfamilies  as  king,  whh  his  sons  and  daughters  and  others  as  slaves 
around  his  fixed  abiding  place,  must  have  been  the  primitive  government  behind 
which  there  is  neither  record  nor  philosophy— no  philosophy  without  overturn¬ 
ing  the  theory  of  development.  IVtan  has  grown  into  refinement  through  reason 
and  experience  and  it  is  altogether  inconsistent  with  reason  to  suppose  that  he 
ever  tried  so  high  a  form  of  government  as  the  communistic  one,  or  that  he  ever 
had  in  those  times  other  than  selfish,  cruel,  beast-government  in  which  all  re¬ 
search  into  antiquity  finds  him.  Mommsen,  History  of  Rome,  Vol  I,  p.  44.  in  cor¬ 
roboration  says  :  “  Hut  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  with  the  Graeco-Italians  as 
with  all  other  nations,  agriculture  became,  and  in  the  mind  of  the  people  re¬ 
mained  the  germ  and  core  of  their  national  and  of  their  private  life,  The  house 
and  the  fixed  hearth,  which  the  husbandman  constructs  instead  of  the  lip ht  hut 
and  shifting  fireplace  of  the  shepherd  and  represented  in  the  spiritual  domain 
and  idealized  in  the  goddess  Vesta  or  'E aria,  almost  the  only  divinity  not  indo- 
Germauic  yet  from  the  first  common  to  both  nations.”  So  again  (p.  48).  “  'J  he 
Hellenic  character,  which  sacrificed  the  whole  to  its  individual  elements,  the 
nation  to  the  township  and  the  township  to  the  citizen.”  This  exactly  expressee 
our  idea,  viz;  that  everything  from  the  first,  was  subordinate  to  the  unlimited, 
despotic  control  of  the  “father.”  For  valuable  information.  See  Funck  Bren- 
tan  o  La  Civilisation  et  ses  Lois,  IV,  I,  p.  311, :  quoting  Plutarch  Numa,  VII)  ‘  II 
en  fut  de  meme  dans  les  cites  de  la  Grece ;  ce  fut  une  condition  de  leur  progress* 

15  Ascon,  Ad  h.  L.  “  Diximus,  L  Pisone  et  A.  Gabieno  consulibus  P.  Clo- 
dium  tribunum  plebis— tuiisse— de  collegiis  restituendis,  novisquc  instituendi*, 
qu®  ait  ex  servitiorum  fince  constituta.’’ 


864  CATEGORIES  OF  TRADE  FEDERATIONS. 


Fabretti  gives  us  another  union  of  carpenters  and  join¬ 
ers  whose  inscription  was  found  at  Leprignani.  It  reads 
very  plainly  and  shows  that  they  had  a  federation  of  the 
trades.16  Another  collegium  fabrorum  tignariorum  or  car¬ 
penters’  trade  union  is  reported  by  Muratori.17  The  tab¬ 
let  was  found  at  Ravelli  in  the  province  of  Naples,  show¬ 
ing  that  the  unions  of  those  days  were  not  confined  to 
Rome  or  any  of  the  other  large  cities  but  were  as  fre¬ 
quent  proportionately  to  population  in  any  small  town. 

An  inscription  is  reported  by  Gruter,18  bearing  evidence 
of  another  interesting  school,  schola ,  of  the  bona  fide  car¬ 
penters’  unions,  found  in  the  Tolentine  temple  of  Cathar- 
ina — religious,  of  course,  and  of  a  later  date.  Orelli 19 
quotes  the  learned  Muratori  of  Modena  as  the  authority 
if  not  the  finder  of  an  inscription  which  describes  a  college 
ium  together  with  a  sodalicium — another  Roman  name  for 
trade  union,  in  which  the  president  or  Magister,  and  the 
secretary  are  mentioned.  It  is  a  union  of  the  skilled  wood¬ 
workers.  It  was  found  in  the  town  of  Falaria,  and  ap¬ 
pears  to  be  very  old.  It  is  not  unusual  for  the  inscrip¬ 
tions  engraved  in  the  time  of  the  emperors,  to  state  an  ap¬ 
proximate  of  their  date  by  noting  the  names  of  the  con¬ 
suls,  or  of  the  monarch  who  then  occupied  the  throne. 
Unfortunately  for  the  more  ancient  ones  this  is  not  so 
strictly  done;  probably  owing  more  to  the  fact  that,  as 
the  law  at  earlier  dates  fully  protected  them,  they  were 
not  forced  to  inscribe  the  dates  by  little  points  or  con¬ 
structions  such  as  characterized  the  laws  after  the  restrict¬ 
ive  acts  were  promulgated. 

No  less  than  eighteen  of  the  genuine  carpenters  and 
joiners’  unions  are  found  in  the  work  of  Orelli.20  As  these 
working  people  used  their  unions  as  means  whereby  to 
parry  off  the  many  dangers  that  beset  them  on  every 
hand,  such  as  slavery,  starvation,  slurs  of  contempt  and 
in  later  times  conscription,  we  cannot  too  well  understand 
how  keenly  alive  they  must  have  been  to  their  welfare. 

16  Fabretti,  C.  IV,  529,  of  Inscrlptiones  Antiques  Explicatio. 

li  Muratorius,  Thesaurus  Veterum  Incriptionum,  521. 

18  Gruter,  Inscriptiones  Antiques  Totius  Orbis  Romanorum,  169.  6. 

Orell.,  No.  4,o56,  Muratori,  Thesaur.  Yet.  Inscr.  523.  We  give  it  with  the 
abbreviations:  “  D.  M.  T.  Siliio  T.  Lib.  Frisco  mag,  cplleg.  Fabr.  et  q  mag.  et 
q.  sodal  fullonum  Clavidice  lib.  uxori  ejus  matri  sodali.  C.  Tullon,  T  Silliua 
Karus  et  Ti.  Claudius  Phillippus  mag.  e'  Q.  Coileg.  fabr.  ftlii parentib.  piissimis.” 

2- Sdtolias  Artificum  et  Opijicum ,  Yol.  II.  pp.  227-240,  aud  Aites  et  Oplfida, 
idem,  pp.  247-266,  of  Orelli’s  great  work  on  the  Latin  Inscriptions. 


GOVERNMENT  EMPLOY. 


866 


On  the  other  hand,  the  power  of  organization  which  kept 
them  in  a  position  to  supply  the  orders  given  them  by  the 
state,  was  ever  a  great  encouragement. 

Among  the  many  interesting  monuments  or  schools  of 
ancient  trade  unionism,  where  mutual  love  and  care  were 
taught  and  the  noble  element  of  sympathy  was  grafted 
upon  the  selfish,  competitive  body  of  irascible  and  acquis¬ 
itive  paganism  which  animated  the  Lycurgan  rule  at  Sparta 
and  the  purely  archaic  slave  code  everywhere,  are  those  to 
be  found  in  the  Order  of  masons,  stonecutters  and  brick¬ 
layers.  These  with  the  painters,  glaziers,  roofers  and 
plumbers,  were  indispensable  to  complete  the  building 
trades.  They  too,  felt  the  necessity  of  organization,  es¬ 
pecially  in  the  later  time  of  Ceesar  and  the  emperors,  on 
account  of  the  awful  treatment  of  slaves  by  their  ferocious 
masters.  There  existed  no  law  by  which  the  slave  mas¬ 
ters  could  be  brought  to  account  for  savage  acts  of  bar¬ 
barity  toward  their  slaves. 

This  distressing  state  of  things  was  not 11  relieved  until 
the  emperor  Adrian  withdrew  the  slaves  from  the  domes¬ 
tic  tribunals  and  transferred  them  to  the  tribunal  of  the 
magistrates;  in  other  words  gave  them  government  pro¬ 
tection.  But  this  was  200  years  after  the  "war  of  Sparta- 
cus.  The  fear  of  being  relegated  back  to  slavery  was  a 
constant  urgent  to  ancient  trade  unionism ;  and  this  ex¬ 
plains  one  reason  at  least,  why  they  so  tenaciously  hugged 
their  fraternities  notwithstanding  the  conspiracy  laws 
against  trade  and  other  organizations  of  the  working  peo¬ 
ple.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  according  to  the  law 
of  B.  C.  58, 22  all  the  new  unions  were  suppressed.  Conse¬ 
quently,  we  are  to  infer  that  those  we  find  in  the  inscrip¬ 
tions  are  those  belonging  to  the  ancient  plan  of  Numa  and 
Solon  which  were  spared  on  account  of  their  veteran  age 
and  respectability.23  Another  thing  requiring  the  nicest 
discrimination  is  the  fact  that  it  will  not  do  to  mention  all 
the  examples  set  down  in  the  works  of  the  arch  ail  o  gists. 
We  only  mention  those  where  the  labor  organization  is 
clearly  defined.  Many  of  these  queer  inscriptions  appear 

21  See  Granier,  IlisLotre  des  Classes  Ouvri'eres ,  pp.  401-487. 

22  See  Mommsen,  De  Coliegiis  et  Sodaliciis  Romanorum,  cap.  IV,  pp.  78-78, 
Ve  Ligibus  ConUa  Collegia  Lulls. 

2:s  Suetonius.  Coes.  4n  “  Cajsar  cuncta  collegio  praetor  autiquitue  constitute 
Uifttraxit.'’ 


m  CATEGORIES  OF  TRADE  FEDERATIONS 


to  us  to  be  only  private  signs  and  hare  nothing  to  do  with 
our  theme.  Slavery  was  everywhere  prevalent  and  many 
of  the  slaves  were  as  ingenious  as  the  freedmen.  We  are 
told  by  Drumann  and  others  that  it  was  customary  for 
masters  to  keep  their  slaves  at  work  and  obtain  profit  from 
their  labor  by  letting  it  out  to  enterprising  foreigners  who 
contracted  building  repairs  and  other  work  on  private 
houses  and  grounds.  But  the  government  was  the  true 
employer  of  the  unions  because  they,  possessing  of  them¬ 
selves  as  it  were,  in  a  unit,  all  the  men  in  organization, 
always  ready,  money,  tools,  raw  material,  skill  and  even 
the  designs  requisite  to  turning  out  a  good  job  promptly, 
were  dangerous  competitors  of  slavery  on  large  works.1* 
From  the  time  of  Numa  the  government  of  Rome  had  al¬ 
ways  patronized  the  trade  unions.  Thus  it  would  appear 
that  some  of  the  inscriptions  may  have  been  private  signs 
used  by  slave  employers  who  carried  on  private  work  upon 
a  small  scale,  hiring  their  laboring  force  of  the  rich  slave 
owning  patricians;  and  it  will  not  do  to  count  the  arch¬ 
aeologists’  lists  of  artes  et  opificia  ;  while  it  is  almost  always 
safe  to  enumerate  their  specimens  of  the  Corpora ,  Sodal- 
icia  or  Collegia 25  in  our  list  of  trade  unions  and  communes. 
Trade  unionism  in  its  highest  form  is  the  reverse  of  slavery. 
The  true  trade  union  of  all  ages  takes  care  of  its  mem¬ 
bers  who  are  co-owners  of  equal  shares,  on  equal  foot¬ 
ing.  Slavery  then,  is  the  exact  antithesis  of  trade  union¬ 
ism  in  principle;  but  although  it  is  certain  that  the  prin¬ 
ciple  on  which  slavery  is  based  was,  especially  among  the 
Spartans  and  Romans,  carried  out  with  all  its  repugnant 
and  appalling  brutalities,28  yet  it  is,  as  a  recognized  sys¬ 
tem  in  the  religio-social  economy  of  the  world,  incom- 
putably  the  oldest  of  the  two.  Trade  unionism  was  a 
deadly  rival  to  the  slave  system  all  through  the  antiquity 
of  the  Indo-European  stock ;  and  since  slavery  was  a  graft 
of  the  ancient  religion — the  natural  child  of  its  law  of 


24  Granler,  Hist,  des  Classes  Ouvrihres,  p.  808,  e peaking  of  the  Insignificance 
of  Individuals  when  compared  with  the  immense  force  of  organized  trades,  says : 
“  Ici  les  nombreux  ouvrieres  de  Caton  (slaves), les  500  ouvners  (slaves)  de  Cras- 
sus  n’  auraient  pn  rien  faire;  il  fallait  des  corporations,  (trade  unions)  des  ool- 
6gesl  do  travailleurs.” 

25  Cf.  Orell.  lib.  II.  pp.  227-246,  Collegia  Corpora  el  Sodilida.  Sc  holes  ArtAficum 
et  Opificum.  See  also  lib.  Ill,  Sup  Henzen  Index  to  Collegia,  init. 

26  Granier,  Hist  des  Classes  Ouvrib-es,  chap.  Ill  and  IV.,  also  Plut.  Lycurgm 
and  Numa  - ompared . 


organization  a  foe  to  slavery. 


3G? 


primogeniture  and  the  fostered  fruit  of  entailment  in  the 
social,  political  and  economic  development  of  those  semi- 
barbarous  families,  phra tries,  curies  and  tribes  which  came 
to  be  nations  and  empires,  it  must  not  be  wondered  at 
that  this  hideous  fledgling,  before  giving  up  the  ghost, 
made  a  terrific  struggle  to  regain  what  it  had  lost  through 
the  mild  but  determined  enterprise  of  its  great  competitor 
trade  unionism. 

It  was  this  that  constituted  the  mighty  struggle  of  the 
revolution  in  the  social  economy  of  the  lowly  and  it  so  re¬ 
mains  to  this  day;  although  in  this  comparatively  gorgeous 
and  brilliant  hour  the  spirit  of  human  slavery,  resting 
upon  absolute,  merchantable  ownership  of  man  by  man, 
seems  to  have  forever  fled.  Nothing  now  remains  of 
slavery  but  its  skeleton — individual  competism — hanging 
betwixt  peace  and  war  over  the  vortex  of  revolution  and 
swinging  to  and  fro  at  every  fresh  attack  from  the  same 
trade  unionism  which,  although  of  prehistoric  longevity 
grows  more  youthful,  enterprising  and  belligerent  with 
every  invention  and  discovery  and  every  stride  of  litera¬ 
ture,  of  science  and  of  Christianity. 

The  unions  of  the  masons  at  Rome  do  not  appear  so 
numerous  as  those  of  the  framers  among  the  building 
trades.  Still  we  find  tablets  whose  inscriptions  show  their 
existence.27  We  have  already  mentioned  the  fact  that 
among  the  true  workmen’s  organizations  the  slabs  which 
appear  to  have  been  inscribed  independently  by  themselves 
and  without  the  correctional  inspection  of  masters,  often 
puzzle  the  experts  on  account  of  the  sometimes  ludicrously 
bad  spelling  and  misplacement  of  words.  Sometimes  also 
there  appear  words  belonging  to  the  peculiar  slang  or 
patois  monenclature,  their  trade’s  vernacular.  But  while 
this  is  somewhat  troublesome  to  archaeologists  it  is  ex¬ 
ceedingly  interesting  to  students  of  ethnology  and  soci¬ 
ology;  since  it  shows  otherwise  unrecorded  proof  that  the 
freedmen,  only  one  step  above  the  slaves,  were  utterly 
negleoted  in  all  matters  of  education.  The  presumption 
must  be  that  the  reason  they  executed  their  inscriptions 
so  well  is  that  they  had,  in  their  mutual  federation  a  trade 


**  Orell.  Arte*  et  Opificia,  Vol.  II,  p.  258  of  Inscr.  Lat.  Select  Colic*  tio.  N©. 
4,239.  It  is  a  broken  fragment.  “Quadratariorum  opus  Augurius  Catullinu* 
Ursar.”  We  read:  “  Quadratariorum  Corpus.”  He  thus  rank©  It  as  a  union. 


368  CATEGORIES  OF  TRADE  FEDERATIONS. 


union  of  carvers  and  gravers  cxlatores  whose  business  was 
to  work  in  letters.  It  was  consequently  a  part  of  their 
trade  to  study  sufficiently  the  Roman  and  Greek  literature 
to  do  their  work  well.  Grater  mentions  several  of  them.2* 
Orelli  tells  us  of  the  sculptor,  signarius  artifex ,  who  worked 
in  signs.29  Any  of  these  could  make  their  signs  or  their 
monuments  and  tombstones  by  being  called  upon  at  any 
time;  but  we  are  reminded  that  then  as  now,  economy  was 
everything  and  that  consequently  they  themselves  might 
often  have  depended  upon  their  own  inexperienced  self- 
confidence  and  thus  have  committed  these  literary  faults 
which  as  amateurs  they  were  too  unlettered  to  rectify. 

The  quadratarii  were  the  true  stone  cutters’  unions  and 
the  probable  reason  why  they  are  not  numerous  is  that 
most  of  the  work  of  the  stone  cutters  was  done  by  the 
marmorarii ,  marble  cutters  or  marble  masons.  Of  these 
we  find  inscriptions  of  genuine  trade  unions  in  consider¬ 
able  numbers.  Now  this  paucity  of  hard  stone-cutters  and 
abundance  of  marble  cutters  is  easily  accounted  for.  The 
Geological  formation  of  the  Italian,  Hellenic  and  Spanish 
peninsulas  is  largely  of  carbonates  of  lime.  A  great  share 
of  the  Appenine  range  is  composed  of  fine  white  marble. 
Many  of  the  springs  and  even  mountain  rivers  of  Italy, 
Greece  and  the  Archipelago  deposit  pure  marble.  Paros 
in  the  iEgian  Sea  was  long  a  rival  in  pure  white  marbles 
of  Pentelicus;  and  Mount  Marpessa  the  seat  of  its  quar¬ 
ries,  may  be  considered  an  isolated  spur  of  the  Iltyrian 
Alps,  lit.  Olympus  and  the  Cambunian  range.  All  through 
these  regions  exist  the  characteristic  marbles  used  in  an¬ 
tiquity  before  the  superior  powers  of  duration  of  sand¬ 
stone  and  granites  were  known.  The  splendid  marble 
quarries  of  Luna  in  Etruria  were  near  at  hand  and  others 
as  celebrated  in  history  were  always  available  to  the  mar¬ 
ble  cutters’  unions  who  made  the  wonderful  temples  of 
Ceres  at  Eleusis,  of  the  Parthenon  at  Athens  and  many 
of  the  great  public  structures  at  Rome.  It  is  therefore, 
very  natural  that  the  marble  cutters’  unions  predominated 
over  the  sandstone  and  granite-cutters  in  point  of  num- 

m  Grut.  laser.  Ant.  Tot.  Orb.  Rom.,  5S3,  5.  This,  Gruter  mentions  as  a  sign 
of  some  emancipated  slave  —  ‘libertus  qui  post  manumissionem  vel  argentarii 
ve.  cailatoris  artem  exercuerit.  ’  But  it  often  happened  that  a  trade  union  was 
inscribed  under  the  name  of  its  magister  or  director. 

as  Orell,  laser.  Lat,  Select,  No.  4,282. 


LIST  OF  THE  THIRTY-FIVE  TRADE  UNIONS.  3G9 


bers ;  and  this  explanation  we  accept  for  the  fewness  of 
trade  unions  found  among  the  inscriptions  under  the 
name  quadratarii  or  stone-cutters.  At  Borne,  even 
though  perhaps  many  worked  in  stone  harder  than  mar¬ 
ble,  the  name  quadratarius  was  merged;  because  even 
the  marble  workers  hewed  and  shaped  large  square 
blocks.  We  have,  even  as  it  is,  enough  evidence  to  as¬ 
sure  us  that  the  quadratarii  existed  and  that  they  were 
organized  into  unions ;  for  this  is  distinctly  stated  in  the 
law  of  Constantine  of  the  year  337.  These,  with  the 
8tructores  and  other  builders,  were  enumerated  in  the  list 
of  35  trade  unions  recognized  at  that  time.  These  35 
unions  are  permitted  by  this  law  to  exist;  although  we 
have  found  inscriptions  and  other  references  giving  evi¬ 
dence  that  at  one  time  more  than  50  trade  unions  existed 
in  Italy,  representing  as  many  organized  trades,  and  mem¬ 
bers  innumerable.  These  will  be  exhibited  as  we  proceed 
with  the  subject.  The  law  of  Constantine  gives  the  35 
trade  unions  existing  at  one  time  as  follows: 

1.  Albarii™  plasterers;  2.  Architecti, architects;  3.  Auri- 
flees,  goldsmiths;  4.  Blatiarii,  workers  in  mosaic;  5.  Car¬ 
pentaria,  wagon-makers;  6.  JErarii,  brass  and  copper¬ 
smiths  ;  7.  Argentarii ,  silversmiths ;  8.  Barbaricarii,  gold 
gilders;  9.  Diatritarii,  pearl  and  fill gree- workers ;  10. 
Aquae  libratores ,  waterers;  11.  Deauratores ,  aura  tores  or 
bractearii,  gold  gilders,  beaters ;  12.  Eburarii ,  ivory  work¬ 
ers;  13.  Figuli,  potters;  14.  Fu  Hones,  fullers;  15.  Fer - 
ram,  blacksmiths ;  16.  Fusores,  founders;  17.  Intestina- 
rii,  joiners;  18.  Lapidarii ,  lapidaries;  19.  Laquearii,  plas¬ 
terers;  20.  Medici,  doctors;  21.  Mulo  medici,  horse  doc¬ 
tors,  veternary  surgeons;  22.  Musivarii,  decorators;  23. 
Marmorarii,  marble- cutters ;  24.  Pelliones ,  furriers;  25. 
Pictores,  painters;  26.  Plumb  arii,  plumbers;  27.  Quad¬ 
ratarii,  stone-cutters ;  28.  Specularii,  looking-glass  makers; 
29.  Statuarii ,  staturies ;  30.  Scasores  or  Pavimentarii,  pav¬ 
ers  ;  31.  Sculptores,  sculptors ;  32.  Structores,  masons ;  33. 
Tessellarii,  pavers  in  mosaic;  34.  Tignarii ,  carpenters;  35. 
Vitriarii,  glaziers.81 

Here  we  have  the  building  trades  represented  in  Com 

so  Codex  Justiniani ,  10,  64.  1. 

81  Mentioned  once  in  Orell  Inscr,  4  277 ;  whereas  the  more  correctly  T  atin 
term  ip  given  by  him  as  an  organized  union,  Idem  4,112. 


870  CATEGORIES  OF  TRADE  UNIONS . 


stantine’s  more  human  law  for  the  post-Christian  organi¬ 
zation.  It  is  well  here  to  state  that  Constantine 32  became 
a  Christian,  being  the  first  who  threw  off  the  yoke  of  pag¬ 
anism.  He  evidently  did  not  understand  its  true  ideas 
and  was  far  from  being  a  Christian  at  heart;  but  he  was 
a  politician,  and  Christian  enough  to  be  unbiased  by  the 
old  Pagan  belief  in  the  divine  aristocracy  of  the  gens  fam¬ 
ily,  in  which  ratiocination  Cicero  had  believingly  fought 
the  unions  of  working  people  on  the  ground  of  their  un¬ 
fitness  to  aspire  to  freedom  and  manhood.  This  stereo¬ 
typed  logic  of  the  Pagan  faith  based  on  the  divinity  of  the 
slave  code,  had  been  overthrown  and  completely  annihil¬ 
ated  by  the  new  doctrine  of  J esus,  which  did  not  war 
against  slavery  but  subverted  it  by  a  new  idea  of  equality 
— a  plan  which,  at  the  time  of  Constantine,  was  already 
300  years  old. 

Of  the  artizans  in  the  building  trades  we  find  sufficient 
mention  in  history;  but  very  little  reference  to  their  or¬ 
ganization  into  trade  unions.  Plutarch 33  and  others  state 
most  clearly  that  the  builders  were  all  ranked  into  a  class 
by  themselves  under  the  wise  distribution  of  King  Numa 
and  he  applies  for  them  the  Greek  term  technitai.  So  in 
Latin,  artifices.  They  held  this  organization  uninterrupt¬ 
edly  for  600  years  at  Rome  and  under  the  much  praised 
laws  of  Solon,  nearly  as  many  years  in  Attica  and  other 
parts  of  Greece,  In  the  year  58  before  Christ  the  con¬ 
spiracy  laws  struck  them  a  hard  blow,  which  like  an  earth¬ 
quake  severely  shook  them  as  far  as  the  Greek  provinces, 
their  primitive  cradle;  but  they  became  more  secret  and 
political,  rallied  and  outlived  their  persecutors. 

Among  the  other  builders’  unions  were  the  architects. 
These  interlinked  with  the  masons,  carpenters,  joiners  and 
others  whenever  a  building  was  ordered  by  the  govern¬ 
ment,  and  contracted  to  do  the  work  at  prices  agreed 
upon.  The  intestinarii ,M  or  as  we  call  them,  the  joiners, 
or  inside  finishers  of  buildings,  had  also  their  trade  or- 

38  See  De  Excusationibus  Artificum, ,  In  Codex  Theodosii,  lib.  18,  tit,  4,  lex.  2. 

88  Plutarch  Life  of  Numa.  Numa  and  Lycurgus  Compared. 

8+  Muratori,  Thesaurus  Vcterum  Tnscriptionum .  937,  7.  mentions  a  fine  incrip 
tion  found  at  Capua  which  is  interesting,  as  it  shows  the  plausibility  of  our  con¬ 
jecture.  in  the  sketch  of :  partacus,  as  to  ihe  causes  of  the  immense  multitude  of 
Freedmen  who  joined  his  army  “  Fa’ori  intestinarii  .  secundum  Budseum,  ei 
ligno  opera  confeciebant  minutiorisartifieii,  quibus  tan  turn  locus  est  intra  tedes.’’ 
S  'qu,  Mur.  929,  6. 


€ 


UNIONS  USED  AS  PEACEMAKERS. 


371 


ganizations  and  appear  to  have  been  in  the  federation  in 
undertaking  contracts  to  erect  and  finish  temples  or  other 
public  edifices. 

An  organization  of  plasterers  is  also  recognized  in  the 
law  of  J  ustianian  and  exempted  from  persecution,  by  the 
code  of  Theodosius,  These  unions  are  not  mentioned  in 
Plutarch’s  list  of  Numa’s  trades  because  the  latter  consol¬ 
idated  the  building  trades  into  one  general  fraternity  with 
an  object,  as  Plutarch  explicitly  recounts,  of  conciliating 
the  jealousies  of  nationality  well-known  to  have  been  a 
cause  of  contention  and  turmoil  between  the  Albans  and 
Sabines.  By  w  breaking  them  up  into  powder,”  to  use  his 
own  words,  Numa  taught  them  to  mix  and  the  contact  of 
the  particles  produced  a  perfectly  conciliatory  effect.  In 
other  words,  throw  off  the  question  of  boundary  lines 
which  disturb  workingmen  and  they  instantly  see  that 
“  an  injury  to  one  is  the  concern  of  alL” 


THE,  STONE  CHEST  CONTAINED  THE  URNS. 
IT  WAS  LOWERED  INTO  THE  SEPULCHRE.. 


BURIAL  FIXTURE  OF  STONE-CUTTERS'  UNION; 


B.C.  100,  3**  368. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


THE  ARMY  SUPPLIES. 

ORGANIZED  ARMOR-MAKERS  OF  ANTIQUITY. 

Trade  Unions  Turned  to  the  Manufacture  of  Arms  and  Muni¬ 
tions  of  War — How  it  came  about — The  Iron  and  Metal 
Workers — Artists  in  the  Alloys — How  Belligerent  Rome 
was  Furnished  with  Weapons,  Shoes  and  Other  Necessa¬ 
ries  for  Her  Warriors — The  Shieldmakers,  Arrowsmiths, 
Daggermakers,  War-G-un  and  Slingmakers,  Battering-Ram- 
makers  etc. — Bootmakers  who  Cobbled  for  the  Roman  Troops 
— Wine  Men,  Bakers  aud  Sutlers — All  Organized — Unions 
of  Oil  Grinders;  of  Pork  Butchers;  even  of  Cattle  Fodderers 
— The  Haymakers — Organized  Fishermen — Ancient  Labor 
brought  charmingly  near  by  Inscriptions. 

Of  the  nine  regular  trade  unions  authorized  by  Numa 
Pompilius,  one  was  that  of  the  metal  workers.  They  were 
all  incorporated  into  a  community,  as  workers  of  hard 
metals,  before  iron  came  to  be  much  in  use.1  Writers 
who  lived  in  ancient  times  often  treat  the  subject  of  use¬ 
ful  metals  in  the  light  that  iron  and  steel  did  not  come 
into  use  until  after  the  foundation  of  Home,  or  758  years 
anterior  to  the  Christian  era.  At  that  early  time  how¬ 
ever,  the  serarii  or  metal  workers  melted  copper  with  the 
ores  of  zink  and  knew  how  to  sprinkle  the  zink  with  pow¬ 
dered  charcoal  during  the  process  of  its  fusion  with  cop¬ 
per  to  prevent  it  from  escaping  in  fumes  of  the  oxide.  It 
may  also  be  stated  that  little  improvement  has  ever  been 
made  in  the  manufacture  of  brass ;  and  even  the  ancient 
process  of  using  zink  ore  instead  of  the  refined  article  did 
not  come  into  use  until  A.  D.  1781.  It  would  not  be  sur- 

i  Lucretius,  speaking  of  brass,  says: “  Et  prior  erat  eeris  quam  ferricognitu? 
neus.‘J 


TRADE  UNIONS  BUILT  SOLOMON’S  TEMPLE.  373 


prising  if  further  investigations  should  lead  to  the  dis¬ 
covery  that  it  was  the  enterprise  of  trade  unions  which  led 
to  this  and  other  inventions  and  discoveries  in  the  arts; 
for  the  purely  slave  system  did  little  or  nothing  for  art 
or  science  and  the  earliest  forms  of  industry  outside  of 
slavery  seems  to  have  been  those  of  workmen  combined 
for  mutual  aid.  Flavius  Josephus  in  his  history  of  the 
Jews  makes  elaborate  mention  of  Solomon’s  temple,  as  hav¬ 
ing  been  built  in  a  large  degree  by  the  trade  unions  un¬ 
der  Hiram  a  man  of  extraordinary  skill  in  the  building 
crafts.  Not  willing  to  accept  our  own  interpretation  of 
Josephus,  we  refer  the  reader  to  the  remarks  of  Granier 
upon  this  subject; 8  as  he  seems  to  have  settled  it  that 
they  were  organized  trades. 

Little  doubt  can  be  entertained  that  iron,  at  the  time  of 
Numa,  was  also  in  use  at  Rome.3  Yet  there  is  no  men¬ 
tion  made  in  proof  that  Numa  organized  the  ferrarii  or 
iron  workers  of  whom  Orelli  furnishes  two  inscriptions,4 
one  of  which  represents  a  genuine  trade  union,  -which 
proves  beyond  any  counter  evidence  that  the  iron  work¬ 
ers  were  organized.  But  abundant  evidence  exists  in  the 
later  laws  restricting  organization,  and  these  clubs  stand 
among  the  excused,  in  the  list  of  35  unions  of  the  code  of 
Theodosius.  If  any  further  doubt  can  possibly  remain  as 
to  the  use  of  iron  by  blacksmiths,  forgers  and  finishers  at 
the  time  of  Numa,  we  have  only  to  refer  the  critic  to 
Homer,  and  the  celebrated  historic  inscription  called  the 
Arundelian  slab,  also  to  the  bible.‘ 


a  Josephus,  Antiquities  of  the  Jews,  book  VII,  chap.  11,  noticed  by  Granier. 
Hlstore  des  Classes  Ouvribres,  p.  289,  note :  “  Ce  que  Flavins  Joseph  raconte  ces 
travaux  qni  fnrent,  4  plusieurs reprise*,  ex6cut6s  a  Jerusalem,  soit  pour  batir  ie 
•emple.  soit  pour  le  refever  oa  le  reparer,  ne  pennet  pas  de  douter  que  les  ouv- 
rlers,  tant  juifs  que  sldoniens,  qu’on  y  employa,  ne  fnssent  organises  en  corpo  - 
ations,  D’ailleurs  toute  espece  de  doute  est  lev6  par  le  passage  suivant,  od  il  est 
clairement  parl6  de  la  hi6rarchie  qui  r6gnait  parnu  ces  ouvriers,  et  des  trois  mills 
deux  cents  maithes  qu’avaient  les  quatre-vingt  mille  masons  occupfis  aux  mu- 

railles  du  temple:  Haav  6*  in  rutv  napoinMV  oiif  AaviSnt  Karahehoir, «t . .  rwv 

Si  harofjiovvrMV  OKTaiax ;  /xvptoi*  rourwv  S’  em(,drai  rp tvt'Xtot  ttai  rpiaKoaioL.” 

*  Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.,  XXXIV,  89  says:  “  Proximo indicari debent metalla  ferri, 
optimo  pessimoque  vitae  instrumento.” 

*  Orell.,  Inscriptionum  Latinarum  Seleclarum,  Nos.  4,060  and  1,239.  The 
first  of  these  is  a  union  of  sling  makers  who  constructed  out  of  iron  the  formid¬ 
able  balistte  which  threw  with  deadly  effect  stones  and  other  missiles  into  the 
ranks  of  an  enemy,  it  reads  as  follows:  “Volcano  sacr.  T.  Flavius  Florus 
Sacerdos  Dei  Solis  Statua  Marmoris  Collegii  balistariorum  et  Collegii  lerrario- 
rum.”  It  was  found  at  Rome  and  catalogued  by  Donati,  II,  p.  225,  §.  We  til 
out  the  abbreviated  words. 

6  Homer,  Iliad.  XXIII,  261,  *  ’HSe  ywalag  ev|dvovs,  jroAidv  r’  <jiSr]pov’,>  Sam 
Pettit’s  Studies  of  the  Arundelian  Inscription :  Bible,  Genesis,  chap.  IV  Job,  chap, 
IX  VI J 


374 


HOME'S  ARMY  SUPPLIES. 


The  silver  and  gold  workers  did  not  confederate  with 
these  metal  workers.  We  reserve  mention  of  them  for  a 
place  farther  on.  Orelli,  among  his  inscriptions  gives 
sufficient  specimens  carved  upon  marble  and  other  slabs, 
some  of  which  have  stood  the  grim  erosions  of  the  ages  of 
time  that  have  seen  all  things  else  crumble  into  dust  since 
hey  were  fresh  from  the  chisel  of  the  caelatores .* 

After  the  death  of  Numa  the  doors  of  the  temple  of 
Janus  were  again  flung  open,  which  meant  that  Rome  was 
again  ready  for  war.  This  king  had  closed  them  as  was 
customary  in  time  of  peace.  He  desired  peace  with  the 
world  in  order  that  the  nation  might  develop  upon  its  own 
resources,  and  by  its  own  labor.  The  43  years  of  his 
peaceful  reign  gave  the  artisans  time  to  organize,  forget 
their  petty  disagreements  and  settle  down  upon  a  basis  of 
fraternity  and  thrift.  And  they  not  only  developed  their 
skill  but  organized  it  so  that  after  the  king's  death,  when 
war  again  broke  out,  the  nation  found  these  metal  workers 
ready  to  turn  their  skilled  labor  to  manufacturing  swords, 
shields  and  all  the  arms  and  munitions  of  the  contests 
which  followed. 

Thus  labor  at  Rome  did  not  suffer  by  war,  because  the 
Roman  arms  were  successful  through  a  long  period  of 
*>00  years.  During  this  time  the  Romans  conquered  the 
world  with  arms  manufactured  to  some  extent  and  we  are 
inclined  to  think,  to  a  very  great  extent,  by  the  iron  and 
metal  workers  organized  by  Numa.  They  loved  their  trade 
anions  and  remained  organized,  working  in  fraternal  bond, 
in  common  enjoyment  of  the  fruits  of  their  united  labor 
in  spite  of  several  attempts  on  the  part  of  the  senate  to 
put  them  down.  The  system,  as  we  have  already  shown, 
was  to  manufacture  arms  and  other  munitions  of  war 
directly  for  the  government  out  of  raw  material  which  be¬ 
longed  to  and  was  produced  from,  the  mines  of  the  gov- 
( rnment. 

We  have  seen  that  the  land  belonged  to  the  Roman 
3tate ;  that  it  was  farmed  by  the  proletaries  on  shares  and 
that  these  shares  were  collected  mostly  “  in  kind,”  by  an 
organization  of  unions.  These  customs-collectors  distri¬ 
buted  the  products  of  the  land  each  year  among  the  citi- 

6  Orell.  in  his  Latin  Inscriptions ,  numbers  the  cselatores  as  follows:  Nos- 
4  1 33,  4,030.  4,066,  4,140,  4.061,  1,239.  361  and  946.  Each  of  these  numbers 
chronicles  a  genuine  trade  union. 


IRON  AND  METAL  WORKERS. 


87ft 


zen  class  who  virtually  possessed  and  comprised  the  govern¬ 
ment  So  also  with  regard  to  the  mines  which  produced 
raw  material  for  the  iron  and  other  metal  workers  to  con¬ 
vert  into  lances,  darts,  swords  and  all  sorts  of  armor  for 
the  Roman  army.  With  the  land,  the  mines  also  belonged 
to  the  government.  There  consequently  had  to  be  a  trade 
union  of  miners  whom  the  Romans  called  ferrariarii,'1  if 
miners  of  iron,  and  senfodinarii,  if  miners  of  copper. 

These  miners  of  Copper  and  iron  were  naturally  feder¬ 
ated  together.  Neither  the  union  of  forgers  and  smiths 
nor  of  the  copper  and  brass  or  bronze  workers  could  buy 
and  exploit  their  own  mining  works  in  order  to  supply  the 
workmen  and  fulfill  their  contracts  with  the  government, 
because  they  did  not  own  the  mines.  Noi  could  the  work¬ 
men  at  the  mines  accomplish  such  an  end.  The  govern¬ 
ment  possessed  the  mines  and  in  many  cases  let  them  to 
contractors.  It  remained,  therefore,  for  the  workmen 
whose  managers  were  often  the  contractors,  to  preserve 
a  close  federation  of  their  trades,  no  matter  how  distant 
they  were  located  apart.  W e  are  told 8  that  at  the  winter 
quarters  of  the  rebel  army  of  Spartacus  at  Thuria,  he  es¬ 
tablished  an  armory  of  large  proportions.  It  was  near 
the  mountains  and  probably  near  mines  of  iron  and  cop¬ 
per  ;  and  as  his  army  was  composed  of  workingmen,  many 
of  whom  were  skilful  artisans  they  co-operated  as  by  com¬ 
mon  consent,  and  practically  used  their  federation  at  both 
tbe  mines  and  the  forge.  The  iron  and  metal  workers, 
who  were  thus  confederated  or  “  distributed  ”  by  Numa 
into  unions  for  the  purpose  of  harmony  in  the  arts  of 
peace,  were,  after  his  death,  thus  kept  in  the  same  bond 
of  union  many  hundred  years,  helping  Rome  to  practice 
her  arts  of  war.  The  plan  of  Government  employment 
directly,  without  middlemen  was  a  happy  one  and  the  long 
vista  of  time  from  the  trade  union  laws  of  Numa  to  the 
conspiracy  laws  of  Cicero  and  Caesar  was  the  true  golden 
age  of  Rome. 

Immediately  after  the  death  of  Numa  Pompillius,  that 
wisest  of  monarchs,  perhaps,  of  whom  the  world’s  history 
makes  mention,  the  doors  of  the  celebrated  temple  of 
Janus  were  thrown  open  and  Mars,  the  bellicose  myth 

"  Muratori  Thesaurus  Velerum  Inscriptionum,  972,  10.  also  idem,  963,  2. 

8  Plutarch,  Crassus,  VIII,  XII.  Seo  also Florus,  III.  20,  6,  speaking  of  impro- 
rising  weapons.  “  E  ferro  egastulorura  recocto  glailios  ac  tela*  faceiunt.” 


876 


ROME'S  ARMY  SUPPLIES . 


war-god  rushed  out  with  trumpets,  javelins  and  the  clangoi 
of  contention.  We  are  going  to  recount  one  seemingly 
phenomenal  instance  in  human  history  where  labor  and 
war  existed  harmoniously  and  thrived  together.  The  king 
in  instructing  his  people  in  the  arts  of  peace  had  actually 
laid  the  foundation  for  the  most  gigantic  successes  ever 
before  known  in  the  arts  of  war!  He  had  taught  the 
state  to  employ  the  labor  of  trade  unions  direct.  He  had 
taught  how  to  do  this  without  the  complications,  individual 
emulations,  avaricious  ambitions  and  failures  which,  in 
wars  often  break  up  great  schemes  through  the  jealousy 
and  incompetence  of  individual  rule.  He  had  simplified 
the  labor  of  production,  distribution,  consumption  by 
himself  employing  all  the  artisans  of  his  realm  and  direct¬ 
ing  them  to  husband  the  resources  of  the  state  which  was 
then  the  owner  of  the  lands,  mines  and  the  waters.  The 
workers  being  themselves  exempt  from  serving  in  war  by 
reason  of  their  supposed  ignoble  origin  and  rank,  had  no 
fear  of  the  tedious  campaign  nor  dread  of  the  carnage  of 
battle.  They  knew  how  to  make  the  steel  that  was  to 
pierce  the  bodies  of  those  they  loved  not,  and  whom  when 
they  were  enslaved,  their  ancestors  had  hated  as  mortal 
foes.  They  were  happy.  Home  was  turned  into  a  vast 
armory.  The  members  of  the  well  organized  unions  were 
the  first  to  receive  employment  from  the  government 
which  was  not  theirs  and  for  500  years  were  the  last  to  be 
maltreated  or  discharged. 

Had  it  been  possible  for  king  Numa  to  live  and  reign 
with  his  peace  measures  during  those  500  years  we  know 
not  what  would  have  been  the  consequence  but  it  would 
have  probably  resulted  in  a  far  different  destiny  for  the 
human  race.  His  scheme  was  to  cultivate  the  elements 
of  peace  and  he  was  wise  enough  to  understand  that  la¬ 
bor  was  a  respectable  factor.  Under  him  it  was  indeed 
becoming  a  cult;  and  could  he  have  lived  long  enough  to 
engraft  his  peace  system,  with  all  its  civilizing  and  sooth¬ 
ing  effects,  until  the  people  far  and  near  had  endorsed  it 
as  a  second  nature,  the  irascible  and  grasping  as  well  as 
the  concupiscent  ingredients  of  our  nature  which  domi¬ 
nate  warlike  tribes  must  have  absorbed  enough  of  the 
great  refining  gem  of  sympathy,  to  have  started  the  Indo- 
Europeans  in  quite  a  different  direction  from  the  murder- 


TRADE  UNIONS  MADE  THE  WEAPONS.  877 


ous  warpath  of  conquest  which  they  actually  took,  leading 
to  ignorance  and  brutality.  It  might  have  been  better  for 
the  trade  unions  to  contine  manufacturing  the  implements 
of  peace  as  Numa  ordered.  But  so  long  as  the  Roman 
arms  prevailed,  Roman  trade  organizations  under  the  war 
system  were  safe;  and  the  workmen  doubtless  cared  little 
for  the  refinements  of  peace,  although  the  neutral  posi¬ 
tion  they  assumed  as  workingmen  and  their  educational 
discussions  among  themselves  certainly  developed  more  of 
sympathy  and  far  less  of  cupidity  and  irascibility  than 
was  possessed  by  the  optimates  who  managed  and  fought 
out  the  brutal  orgies  of  warfare. 

From  the  foregoing  we  know  that  no  great  amount  of 
work  was  done  by  the  iron  and  metal  workers  in  the  line 
of  armor  manufacture  during  the  lifetime  of  Numa.  Af¬ 
ter  his  death,  when  the  warring  spirit  of  the  patrician 
class  was  aroused  to  anticipations  of  the  ancient  scenes  of 
valor  and  blood,  it  was  found  that  Rome  was  without  arms 
and  munitions  of  war.  The  helmets  and  shields,  the  sa¬ 
bres  and  javelins  had  been  forged  into  mattocks,  spades 
and  cutlery  of  domestic  use.  It  was  necessary  to  make  a 
new  beginning.  That  the  ferrarii  or  iron  workers  pos¬ 
sessed  a  federation  with  the  sword  cutlers  is  certain,  al¬ 
though  the  exact  date  of  that  co-operation  is  difficult  to 
ascertain.  It  must  have  been  old,  however.  A  number 
of  inscriptions  bearing  evidence  of  this  are  recorded  by 
Orolli ; 8  and  we  have  distinct  mention  in  the  digest 10 — - 
showing  that  these  unions  or  fraternities  of  workmen  were 
fixed  by  law.  The  trade  unions  had  then  in  their  federa¬ 
tion  the  gladiarii  or  sword  cutlers,  the  sagitarii  or  arrow- 
smiths,  the  scutarii  or  elliptical  shield  makers  who,  how¬ 
ever,  made  this  armor  of  wood  and  sometimes  covered  it 
with  thick  rawhide,  sometimes  with  plate  metal ;  and  the 
clipearii  or  round  shield  makers  who  made  them  of  copper 
or  bronze;  the  telarii  or  manufacturers  of  darts  and  jave¬ 
lins  ;  the  8calperiiy  knife  makers,  and  the  hastarii  or  spear 
makers.  There  was  another  trade  union,  the  collegium 
ballistariorum ,u  mentioned  also  in  the  digest,1*  the  special 

9  Orell.,  Inter.  Lot.  Select.  CoU.  Nos.  4,197,  4,247,  Artes  el  Opificia. 

10  Tarrant 60,  6,  6,  dig.  “gladiarii,  eagittarii,  Carpentaria,  aquflcee,  scandn- 
l&rii,  etc.  ** 

11  Orell,,  idem ,  No.  4,066,  Donati,  2,  p.  225. 

12  Tarrant,  dig.  50,  6,  6,  This  was  a  genuine  trade  union  which  had  a  con 


ROME'S  ARMY  SUPPLIES. 


378 


business  of  whose  numbers  was  to  manufacture  the  cele¬ 
brated  ballista ,  a  hind  of  mitrailleuse,  or  stone  thrower, 
which  with  great  force  and  deadly  effect  flung  large  peb¬ 
bles  or  small  stones  and  other  projectiles  into  the  ranks 
of  an  enemy.  Much  engineering  skill  was  required  to 
operate  this  engine  of  war.  Doubtless  the  unions  were 
obliged  to  send  their  own  mechanics  to  adjust  and  manip¬ 
ulate  these  huge  engines.  But  it  is  more  probable  13  that 
they  were  federated  with  the  great  trade  union  now 
known  by  numerous  very  interesting  and  unmistakable 
inscriptions  as  the  collegium  mensorum  machinariorum 14 
or  trade  union  of  machine  adjusters  and  setters,  whose 
business  was  to  oversee  the  work  of  transporting  any 
finished  machinery  to  the  place  of  its  destination  and 
supervise  or  perform  the  work  of  setting  it  in  operation. 
The  body  or  union 16  which  is  referred  to  in  the  inscrip¬ 
tion  given  in  the  foot-note  below  evidently  combined  the 
two  functions  of  trade  union  and  burial  society.  Furius 
and  Lollius  were  officers,  being  both  members  of  the 
society  of  machinists;  and  were  buried  at  the  expense 
of  the  funeral  branch  and  out  of  the  funeral  fund.  The 
amount  of  25  denarii 16  was  mentioned  for  the  funeral 
expenses.  Roses  costing  5  more  were  to  be  put  upon 
the  coffin.  For  the  funeral  expenses  of  their  aged  par¬ 
ents  one-half  this  amount  wag  to  be  appropriated.  In 
case  these  requirements  were  not  conformed  to,  there 
would  be  a  forfeiture  on  the  part  of  the  trade  union  of 
double  this  sum  annually,  which  forfeiture  should  be 
covered  into  the  treasury  of  the  funeral  branch. 


siderable  membership,  as  the  construction  of  these  hnge  engines  required  mncb 
labor  and  skill. 

13  Mommsen  constantly  bemoans  the  silence  of  historians  on  these  extremely 
interesting  subjects  We  render  for  our  readers  some  of  his  own  lamentations: 
“The  deep  silence  of  the  stones  containing  the  inscribed  constitutions  and  re¬ 
strictions,  prevents  us  from  determining  which  (meaning  the  trade  unions  were 
under  the  law  and  which  adverse  to  the  privileges  granted  by  the  senate).”  D« 
Coll  et  Sodal.  Romanoi'um,  p.  80.) 

14  Gruterius.  Inscription es  Antiquce  Totius  Orbis  Romdnorum,  91, 1.  Murator- 
ius,  Thesaurus  Veterum  Inscriptlonum,  523,  3.  Orellius  I nscnptionum  Latinarum 
Collectio,  No.  4,107.  The  inscription  reads:  “D.  M.  C,  Turius,  C.  T.  Lollius 
quitquit.  ex  corpore  mensorum  machinariorum  funeraticii  nomine  sequetur,  re- 
llqum  penes  Rempublicam  super  scriptam  remanere  volo  ex  cujus  usuris  peto  a 
vobis  college  uti  suscipere  dignemini  VI  diebus  solemnibus  sacrificium  mihi 
faciatis  Id  est  II II  id.  mart,  die  natalis  mei  usque  ad  XXV  ^denarios  i,  Paren- 
talis  XII  semis.  Flos  rosa  V.  Si  facta  non  fuerint,  tunc,  tisco  stacionis  ami  on® 
duplum  funeraticium  dare  debebetis  ” 

15  See  Orell.,  Inscr.  Lat.  Coll.,  Vol  III,  p.  170.  Varia  collegiorum  nomina 

16  A  Homan  denarius  of  the  period  of  Cicero  was  worth  16J4  cents.  Bockh. 


ANCIENT  BATTERING  RAMS. 


879 


This  strange,  progressive  co-operation  of  the  lowly, 
industrious,  ingenious  but  despised  moiety  of  the  anci¬ 
ent  people  may  justly  be  regarded  as  a  lost  lesson.  Un¬ 
til  now  it  has  rested  in  profoundest  darkness.  So  utterly 
ignored  was  labor  by  the  ancient  historians 1T  that  even 
the  nominal  terminations  affixed  to  nouns  and  particles 
in  the  Lai  in  tongue,  giving  the  technical  forms  that  were 
in  commonest  use  for  artizans  of  every  kind,  do  not  ap¬ 
pear,  if  we  except  a  very  few  in  Pliny  and  one  or  two 
other  writers  on  art.  On  account  of  this  extraordinary 
neglect  our  lexicographers  are  obliged  to  have  constant 
recourse  to  modern  archaeologists  in  whose  works  ap¬ 
pear  inscriptions  verbatim ,  from  the  time-crumbled 
stones !  From  no  other  source  can  they  with  classic 
authority  complete  the  vocabularies  of  the  language ! 
But  this  authority  is  justly  considered  good.  These 
stones  tell  tales  which  the  prevaricating,  mellifluous  sy¬ 
cophants  at  the  court  of  the  Caesars  dared  not  smirch 
their  parchment  with. 

The  arietarii  or  battering  ram  makers  do  not  appear 
as  belonging  to  a  union  by  themselves.  If  this  was  ever 
the  case  we  have  not  been  able  to  discover  any  inscrip¬ 
tion  bearing  record  of  the  fact.  But  they  existed.  Livy 
repeatedly  speaks  of  the  aries  or  battering  ram ;  and  it  is 
known  to  have  been  at  first  a  simple  device,  consisting  of 
a  huge  beam  sometimes  150  feet  long  which  a  large  force 
of  men  held  on  their  shoulders  and  by  repeated  back¬ 
ward  and  forward  runs,  the  •  bronze-plated  ram  or  head, 
striking  against  the  wall  of  an  enemy’s  town,  broke  or 
rammed  down  the  masonry  so  that  the  soldiers  rushed 
through  the  breaches  and  sacked  the  place.  It  is  quite 
probable  that  these  ram  makers  were  merged  into  the 
membership  of  the  catapultarii  or  balistarii 18  who  manu¬ 
factured  these  huge  machines,  in  connection  with  the 
catapults  or  stone  slings.  However  this  may  have  been, 
it  was  certainly  due  to  the  ingenuity  and  industry  of  the 
machinists  that  the  battering  ram  developed  from  this 
simple  form  until,  in  its  state  of  perfection,  it  was  hung 
by  chains  to  the  boom  of  a  tripod  fastened  by  guys  ;  and 

11  Dfimmaim,  Arb.  u.  Comn.,  p.  165.  “  Befriodlgeude  Nacbrichten  eucht 

mau  ver>.raben8.” 

i*  Ureil.  No.  4,066,  Balistariorum  Collegium 


ROME'S  ARMY  SUPPLIES 


iso 

thus  swaj^ed  forward  and  backward  by  human  or  mule 
power  so  as  to  beat  down  the  strongest  walls. 

Then  among  others  of  the  armor  makers  were  the  jac- 
ulatorii  or  slingers.  Darts,  jacula ,  were  in  common  use 
with  the  ancients.  They  were  easily  broken,  were  of 
short  duration  and  consequently  had  to  be  manufactured 
in  large  quantities ;  and  we  are  told  they  were  manufac¬ 
tured  along  with  other  armaments  in  home  and  other 
industrial  centers,  by  the  unions  who  found  in  the  gov¬ 
ernment  a  reliable  employer  that  paid  well  for  the  work.19 

The  Collegium  Caligariorum  (soldiers’  boot  makers  or 
cobblers),  was  a  trade  union  of  shoemakers  who  manu¬ 
factured  and  supplied  shoes  for  the  army.30  During  the 
warlike  ages  which  intervened  between  the  reign  of 
Numa  Pompilius  and  the  first  emperors,  a  large  army 
was  almost  constantly  employed  by  the  Roman  govern¬ 
ment.  These  had  to  be  supplied  with  food,  clothing, 
barracks,  tents  and  impedimenta  and  all  the  parajoherna- 
lia  of  war.  In  those  times,  to  be  a  soldier  was  a  grace; 
to  be  a  cobbler  a  disgrace ;  and  as  the  membership  of 
the  collegia  was  always  composed  of  freedmen  or  emanci¬ 
pated  slaves,  with  their  children  and  their  children’s 
children  who  constituted  the  great  proletariat  of  Rome, 
the  labor  which  their  poor  fathers  performed  as  slaves, 
came  down  with  them  in  disgrace.  This  is  the  real  origin 
of  the  taint  of  labor — Ihe  social  degradation  of  the  poor 
who  performed  it.  It  is  the  blackened  obloquy,  flinging 
its  attendant  odium  and  fastening  its  stain  alike  on  him 
who  performs  and  on  his  performance.  These  corvine 
haters  of  those  who  fed  them,  painted  social  rank  festooned 
in  contumety  which  fastened  upon  and  clung  tight  to  the 
heart  and  soul  of  both  rich  and  poor,  cowing  the  work¬ 
men  into  the  unmanly  belief  that  both  labor  and  the  la¬ 
borer  were  as  mean  as  they  were  believed  to  be.  Thus 
contempt  for  labor  had  descended  from  generation  to 
generation  with  an  ignoble  belief  in  the  lowliness  of  so- 

J4  Granier,  Histoire  dcs  Classes  Ouvrikrcs,  chap,  xii,  pp.  302-304.  “Dans  son 
cote,  le  gouvernement  avait  besoin  de  trouver  tonjours  un  norabre  et  une  vari¬ 
ety  d’ouvriers  euffisants  pour  executer  ses  ouvrages:  et  quels  ouvrages  que  ceux 
<ju'  a  fait  executer  le  gouvernement  Romain  I  Que  de  temples  et  quels  temples! 
Que  d’  aqueduos  et  quels  acjueducs !  Que  de  pouts  et  quels  pouts  1  ” 

2u  Gruter,  Inscr.  Ant.  Rom.,  649,  1.  See  also  Drumaun,  Arbeiter  und  Ccmmu 
msten  in  Rom ,  who,  quoting  Ciciro,  Pro  Flacc.  7,  says:  “Eben  bo  die  Schuster 
sutores,  welche  Cicero  mit  den  Glirtlern,  zonariis,  ala  veriichtliohe  Volksklaase 
Uoimt,  bildeten  eine  besondere  Zunft  nach  Numas  Einrichtung.” 


STATE  EMPLOY  OF  TRADE  UNIONS .  881 


rial  grade.  But  the  work  of  the  soldier  was  honorable. 
At  first,  only  the  patrician  and  his  sons,  the  grandees  of 
the  realm,  could  enjoy  the  honor  of  a  soldier’s  life.  But 
times  had  changed.  The  slave  who  became  a  freedman 
had  organized  himself  into  the  union  of  resistance  against 
oppression  and  we  find  him  now  a  member  of  the  soldier’s 
shoemaking  union,  by  far  the  happier  man  of  the  two,  pur¬ 
veying  boots  and  shoes  to  the  comparatively  useless  ranks 
of  the  Roman  army  whose  trade,  like  that  of  the  brigands, 
was  to.  rob  and  destroy,  not  to  produce.  Especially  must 
this  great  truth  have  gladdened  him,  since  by  reason  of 
his  organization  which  at  that  time  there  was  no  law  to 
forbid,  he  realized  easier  times.  There  were  then  tio  or¬ 
ganized,  competing  industries,  monopolizing  his  busi¬ 
ness.  In  the  certitude  of  employment  and  its  remuner¬ 
ation,  though  there  was  little  hope  of  afiluance,  he  wa  s 
content.21  This  was  certainly  the  Golden  era.  The  in¬ 
scriptions  bear  witness  that  the  society  became  the  in¬ 
strument  of  much  social  pleasure  and  probably  instruc¬ 
tion.  Indeed,  this  could  not  have  been  otherwise  as  all 
the  testimony  of  experience  in  the  scale  of  social  pleas¬ 
ures  and  means  of  advancement  were  similar  to  those  of 
exactly  similar  unions  of  our  own  times.  Working  peo¬ 
ple  were  not  honored  by  any  of  the  noble  or  heroic  pro¬ 
fessions  ;  such  as  the  pursuits  of  war,  which  were  not 
considered  ignoble,  or  of  writing  the  history  of  war." 

**  The  whole  truth  Is,  government  patronized,  employed  and  protected  the 
trade  unions  for  more  than  500  years.  Granier  in  correctly  denying  that  either 
the  very  rich  or  the  indignant  individuals  upheld  the  unions,  says:  “  Restatt 
enfin  le  gouvernment.  C’  etait  la  le  vrai  client  des  jurandes,  et  les  travaux  en- 
trepris  par  lui  formait  le  seul  atelier  permanent  od  les  ouvriers  pussent  gagner. 
chaque  jour  leur  salaire.”  Granier,  Histore  des  Classes  Ouvriers,  p.  303.  Again.. 
idem,  pp.  303-4,  Granier  says:  ‘‘De  son  cote,  le  gouvernement  avait  besoin  de 
trouver  toujours  un  nombre  et  une  variete  d’ouvi’iers  sufilsants  pour  executor 
ses  ouvrages;  et  quels  ouvrages  que  ceux  qu’a  fait  ex6cuter  le  gouvernement 
romain!  Que  de  temples  et  quels  temples  I  Que  d’aqueducs,  et  quels  aque- 
dues  I  Que  de  pouts,  et  quels  ponts  !  lei  les  nombreaux  ouvriers  de  Caton,  les 
cinq  cents  ouvriers  de  Crassus  n’auraient  pu  rien  laire;  il  fallait  des  corpora¬ 
tions,  des  colleges  de  travailleurs ;  et  e’est  parce  qu’ilsse  brent  perpetuellement 
leurs  patrons  et  leurs  commanditaires,  que  le  senat  et  les  empereurs  s’immis- 
cerent  dans  leurs  statuts.  La  loi  des  Douze  Tables,  qui  ordonne  a  touts  corpet 
ation  de  se  conformer  aux  iois  generates  de  l’Etat,  est  done  en  reality  le  premier 
privilege  etabli  en  favour  des  classes  ouvriere  deja  organisees  regulierement  & 
cette  epoque.”  According  to  this,  the  Roman  government  was  the  employer  of 
the  trade  unions  to  an  enormous  extent ;  and  this  explains  the  cause  of  the  ter¬ 
rible  conflicts  reaching  from  the  time  of  Viriathus  to  the  suppression  of  the 
unions,  B,  C,  58. 

22  So  proud  was  the  gens  family  that  even  convicts,  condemned  to  the  Roman 
prisons  lor  li  e,  if  of  noble  extraction,  could  not  be  put  to  hard  labor  because  it 
would  tarnish,  not  the  man,  but  the  family  or  gens  name.  This  could  not  be  sul- 


382 


ROME'S  ARMY  SUPPLIES. 


Very  few  pursuits  involving  labor  were  looked  upon  aa 
fitting  a  gentleman  in  ancient  days;  and  any  admixture 
however  indifferent  in  these  pursuits,  sullied  the  proud  ' 
claims  to  aristocracy  and  family  prestige. 

The  trade  union  system  therefore,  which  assumed  the 
entire  care  and  responsiblity  of  all  labor  both  in  produc¬ 
tion  and  distribution,  except  that  performed  by  the  slaves 
who  always  lingered  upon  the  gens  estates,  was  an  econ¬ 
omy  to  the  ruling  minority;  for  it  relieved  them  from 
the  real  perplexities  of  toil,  and  it  gratified  their  pride 
by  absolving  them  from  the  stigma  which  attached  to  all 
manipulations  of  producing  and  distributing  that,  with¬ 
out  which  they  must  have  starved. 

We  propose  to  devote  a  few  pages  to  a  consideration 
of  the  great  trade  union  method  of  victualing  not  only 
this  non -working  minority  and  the  army  but  the  entire 
population  of  Rome.  In  the  closely  allied  branch  of  this 
great  system — that  of  the  customs  collectors — we  have 
already  approximately  shown  what  may  be  called  this  sys¬ 
tem  in  outline ;  we  shall  soon  give  the  system  itself. 

The  use  of  wine  was  very  common  in  those  countries 
in  ancient  times  and  was  an  important  article  of  food. 
There  were  two  communes  of  wine  dealers,  one  at  Rome 
and  one  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber.  Maffeus  cites  an  in¬ 
scription,  which  was  found  at  Verona.28  Its  date  is  that 
of  the  emperors,  as  it  has  the  name  of  Augustus,  and  it 
portrays  a  genuine  union  of  the  wine  men  who  furnished 
Rome  with  that  beverage.  These  organizations  were  in 
communication  with  the  productive  interior  of  Italy  and 
may  have  had  wagons  and  boats,  either  of  their  own,  or 
engaged  and  paid  by  them  to  bring  the  wine  to  their 
storehouses ;  if  wagons,  direct  to  the  city  ;  and  if  ships 
or  boats,  to  the  port  of  Ostia  where  it  was  stored  and 
cured,  often  smoked  as  we  shall  describe,  and  at  the  pro¬ 
per  time  distributed  to  consumers.  Not  only  the  wine 
produced  from  the  government  lands  and  accruing  to  the 
citizens  in  form  of  rent  payable  in  kind  as  noticed  in  the 
remarks  on  the  Vecti galarii  or  customs  collectors,  but 
also  all  the  remainder  that  the  farmers  did  not  need  for 

lied,  even  by  crime  until  a  later  period.  See  Bombardini,  De  Career e  et  A  ntique 
Ejus  Usu,  cap.  VIII,  p.  763  of  Thesaurus  Grcemi  et  Gronovii. 

2:’>  Maffeus.  Museum  Veronense,  114,  2.  *  ‘  Quinquennalis  corporura  vinariornm 
urbanorum  et  Osteusium. 


UNIONS  OF  WINE  SMOKERS 


Ml 

their  own  use  was  sent  to  market;  and  of  course,  in  the 
absence  of  competing  lines  of  transportation  such  as  now 
exist,  the  wine  was  sent  to  Rome  by  the  same  watermen 
who  took  the  rent.  The  most  of  it,  however,  went  overland 
by  wagons  and  we  have  reason  to  believe,  in  a  crude  state; 
for  there  existed  at  Rome  more  than  one  union  oi/uma- 
tores ,  or  wine  curers  who  matured  their  wines  with  smoke. 
This  was  done  by  an  apparatus  in  shape  of  a  hogshead  con¬ 
taining  wine,  through  which  smoke  was  forced  by  means 
of  force  pipes.  At  Tarentum,  was  found  an  inscription 
which  plainly  mentions  the  collegiem  fumaiorum .  It  was 
sketched  by  Miinter,  and  incorporated  as  a  regular  trade 
union  into  the  great  collection  of  Orelli.*4  The  wines  of  the 
ancients  were  rich  and  excellent.  The  task  of  the  unions 
was  to  finish  the  taste  and  color  so  that  they  constituted  the 
richest  and  healthiest  beverage  to  be  found.  To  this  day 
the  wines  of  Italy  are  counted  among  the  most  delicious ; 
but  it  is  questionable  whether  they  are  as  well  cured  as  in 
ancient  times  or  whether  they  are  as  plenty. 

There  was  a  union  of  cultivators  and  dealers  in  table  or 
olive  oils,  collegium  oleariorum  *  whose  business  in  part, 
was  to  grind  and  prepare  the  oils  from  the  fruit  of  the  olive 
tree  which  grows  luxuriantly  in  southern  Europe.  The 
great  entrepot  of  Rome,28  was  Ostia,  at  the  mouth  of  the 
riverTiber  18  miles  from  Rome.  The  quantity  of  work 
carried  on  by  the  waterman  between  Ostia  and  Riome  must 
have  been  enormons  considering  the  slow,  toilsome  method 

24  Orell.,  Analecta  Nonnulla,  No.  6,044 ;  “  D.  M.  Fedt,  Collegium  Fumatorani 
bene  merente.”  It  was  found  at  Tarentum.  Orelli  adds:  *•  Novum  mihi  acci.lit 
Collegium  Fumatorum.” 

25  Fabretti,  Inscriptionum  Artiquarum  Explicate,  781-760,  citing  the  incriptiott, 
originally  found  at  Ostia,  but  now  in  Florence, 

26  Orell ,  Inscr.  Lat.  Coll.,  vol.  II,  238,  remarks:  44  In  magno  Colleglorum  et 
artium  numero,  notandum  in  primis,  decurias,  non  corpora  vel  Collegia  consti- 
tuisse  Ostiae.”  In  proof  of  this  see  Orell.  Inscr.,  No.  4,109,  which  enumerates  19 
trade  unions  in  one  tablet,  which  we  produce  for  the  curious  critic.  The  great 
epigraphist  reminds  us  in  a  note  that  these  are  not  mere  corporations  but  trade 
unions,  (s eo  ante).  The  incription  runs  thus;  “ Cneo  Sentio  On.  fil.  ter.  felici 
Dec.  eedilicio  adl.  Decurionum  decreto  adlecto  Quaestor!  Aedili  ostiens  II,  vir. 
Q.  juvenum. 

Hie  primus  omnium  quo  anno  decimo  adlectus  est  et  qul  a  facto  est  et  in  prox- 
tmum  duo  vires  designat.  Est  quinque  curatorom  naviuni  marinariorum 
gratis  adlect.  inter  (sic)  novicular.  Maris  Hadriatici.  Et  ad  quadrigam  fori  vin- 
ariorum.  Patrono  decuria  scribar.  praeconum  et — et  argentarioi  am,  et  negotia- 
torum.  vinariorum.  Ab  TJrbe  item  mensorum,  /rumen tariorum  cereris.  Aug, 
item  collegia  scaphariorum  et  lenunculariorum.  Traject.  Luoulli  et  dendro- 
phorum  et  lege  Rogatorum.  A  faro  et  de  sacomar  ;  et  libertormn  et  serrorum 
publicorum.  Oleariorum  et  juvenum  cisianorum  et  veteranorum.  Aug.  item 
benificiariorum.  Aug,  et  piscatorum.  propolaricrum  curatori  lusus  juvenalis. 

Cneus  Sentius  Lucullus  Gamala.  Clodianus.  F.  Patri  indulgentdssemo.” 


384 


ROME'S  ARMY  SUPPLIES. 


of  propelling  little  boats.  In  those  days  of  crude  method 
and  meagre  facility  the  functions  of  a  trade  union  appear 
not  to  have  been  confined  to  this  simple  business.  It  ap¬ 
pears  from  the  inscriptions  and  other  data  that  the  manu¬ 
facturers  of  an  article  were  often  the  distributers  of  it. 
Thus  in  the  case  of  the  wine  smokers,  the  same  union  that 
bought  the  crude  grape  juice  which  arrived  through  the  la¬ 
bors  of  the  unions  of  coasters,  lenuncularii ,  plying  between 
the  Adriatic  or  Mediterranean  landings  and  the  chief  depots 
as  Ostia  and  Pisae  or  Tarentum,  or  that  wrhich  arrived  on 
board  the  larger  ships  of  the  navicularii  ir om  greater  dis¬ 
tances,  as  Spain  or  from  Gaul  via  Arles,  assumed  also  the 
duty  of  curing  these  wines  and  of  putting  them  into  the 
hands  of  consumers.  This  explains  the  phenomenon  as  to 
there  being  comparatively  few  middlemen  or  petty  shop¬ 
keepers  among  the  Romans  although  there  were  many  even 
of  these.’1  It  also  leads  to  an  explanation  of  the  curious 
fact  that  merchants  were  considered  nearly  as  low  and  un¬ 
worthy  the  respect  of  the  high-born  class  as  the  mechanics 
and  laborers.  In  those  early  days,  before  the  development 
of  the  vast  commerce  which  belongs  to  the  Christian  era, 
business  of  any  kind  whether  mechanical,  mercantile  or 
agricultural  was  held  under  ban  and  men  did  not  espouse 
it  except  as  a  necessity.  This  contempt,  an  inculcation  of 
the  aristocratic  religion,  lived  as  long  as  that  religion  reigned; 
but  when  Christianity  established  itself  upon  its  revolution¬ 
ary  basis  of  exact  equality  of  all  men,  the  contempt  fell  to 
the  ground ;  and  gradually  the  aristocracy  of  w’ealth  rose 
in  the  place  of  the  ancient  aristocracy  of  birth.  But  as  it 
w as  not  inherent  in  manual  labor  to  produce  much  more 
than  the  individual  laborer  consumes,  and  perfectly  possible 
for  the  mercantile  system  to  amass — sometimes  enormously 
— the  mechanic  and  laborer  continue  to  be  poor  and  consid¬ 
ered  with  contempt  wrhile  the  speculators  on  their  products 
rise  to  the  loftiest  respectability.  But  all  this  is  because 
Christianity  is  only  in  its  theoretical  condition,  having  not 
yet,  on  account  of  the  stupendous  magnitude  of  the  revolu¬ 
tion  it  has  undertaken,  acquired  and  put  in  operation  the 
mechanical  instrumentalities  for  the  practical  realization  of 
its  scheme. 

So  also  the  oil  grinders  union  was  in  the  habit  of  buying 

4-1  See  Orell.,  Noe.  4,139-4,300,  Arttset  Opljicia, 


OIL  GRINDERS '  UNIONS. 


S  85 


crude  oils  or  impressed  olives  on  board  the  ships  arid  boats 
at  Ostia,  conveying  them  to  their  storehouses,  running  them 
through  their  presses  or  grinders,  purifying,  curing  and 
boitling  them  in  ollas,  even  placing  them  at  the  command 
of  the  triclinarch  himself.  To  do  this  required  a  large 
number  of  members  in  the  commune  or  union;  but  this  fur¬ 
nished  steady  employ  in  which  each  member  fell  himself  a 
co-operator  or  co-owner  which  not  only  secured  him  or  her 
from  the  dangers  of  dismissal  but  must  also  have  been  a 
great  comfort ;  since  members  felt  the  dignity  of  their 
position,  low  ly  of  course,  compared  with  the  rich  non-work¬ 
ers  who  looked  upon  labor  with  disdain,  yet  independent 
in  comparison  with  the  dispropertied  and  maltreated  slaves. 

Bread  was  another  commodity  the  supply  of  which  became 
largely  the  task  of  the  trade  unions  from  very  early  times. 
The  ancient  method  of  baking  differed  little  from  that  of  the 
present  day.  The  ancient  bakers*  unions,  then,  were  in 
nearly  all  respects,  identical  with  the  bakers*  unions  in  New 
York  city  to-day.  We  have  abundance  of  testimony  re¬ 
garding  the  unions  of  bakers.  A  corpus  pastillariorum 
mentioned  by  Muratori,28  was  one  of  the  post-Christian  com¬ 
munes.  The  pastillarii  were  manufacturers  of  dainty  loaves, 
biscuits,  cakes  and  bon-bons. 

Then  there  were  the  regular  bread  bakers,  panfices  or  pis- 
tores  who  also,  as  part  of  their  task,  ground  or  beat  grain 
into  flour  or  meal  with  a  pestle.29  One  can  at  a  glance  con¬ 
ceive  that  the  amount  of  this  work  was  enormous.  The 
method  of  making  bread  was  the  same  as  now;  for  very  lit¬ 
tle  has  ever  been  added  for  facilitating  its  rapid  manufac¬ 
ture  ;  but  the  method  of  grinding  has  been  so  greatly  im¬ 
proved  as  to  admit  of  scarcely  a  comparison.  It  required 
8  large  force  of  workmen  in  those  times  to  pound  up  and 
bake  the  three  different  kinds  of  bread  consumed  by  the 
whole  people  rich  and  poor,  of  Rome.*0  But  these  men  dur- 

*8  Cf.  Mur.  Thesaur.  Veterum  Inscriptionum,  527,  6.  Anno  post  Chr.  435. 

29  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  XIV,  tit.  3.  The  bakers  were  among  the  unions  which  en¬ 
joyed  the  jus  coeundi  or  right  of  organization.  See  Codex  TheodosU ,  dt  Excusa- 
tAonibus  ArtiJLcuvi,  lib.  XIII,  tit.  IV,  leg.  2.  The  organized  bakers  and  boatmen 
were  among  the  most  numerous  and  powerful  in  Italy. 

so  We  have  shown  in  our  chapters  on  strikes  and  uprisings  that  the  slave 
portion  of  the  proletaries  were  fed  on  pease  and  nuts.  See  Granier  Hisloire  da 
Classes  Ouvri'eres,  pp.  96-97.  “  Des  les  premiers  temps,  avons-nous  dit,  les  esclaves 
se  trouverent  separAs  des  hommes  libres  et  flrent  race  a  part;  ils  allerent  nourris 
et  vStus  d’une  fagon  propre  et  spAciale,  Les  juifs  leur  pergaient  l’oreille,  les 
Grecs  et  les  Romains  les  marquaient  au  front,  d’ou  lo  nom  de  Stichus  Atait  restA 
commun  et  general  parmi  les  esclaves.  DAs  le  temp*  (VHomAre,  leur  rAgime  ali- 


HOME'S  ARMY  SUPPLIES. 


380 


ing  a  cycle  of  700  years  were  organized  and  they  enjoyed  a 
trade  union  in  all  probability  from  iong  before  the  time  of 
Numa,  Their  scope  was  wide,  their  members  large,  their 
business  steady,  their  work  guaranteed ;  and  they  had  the 
balmy  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  they  were  safe. 

Another  great  and  very  important  organization  of  the  la¬ 
boring  people  was  that  of  the  butchers.  A  considerable 
branch  of  this  business  was  performed  by  the  suarii  or  pork 
butchers.  It  is  stated  that  the  wealthy  repudiated  pork 
and  confined  their  diet  of  meat  to  fish,  venison  and  mutton. 
But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  there  were  organized 
unions  of  suarii  or  pork  butchers,  and  we  have  evidence 
that  they  drove  a  heavy  business.  What  did  Rome  want  of 
pork  butchers  if  her  citizen  population  refused  to  use  pork 
and  her  slave  population  w7as  not  allowed  to  use  meat  of  any 
kind  ?  This  is  a  troublesome  question,  to  be  solved  only 
by  the  student  of  history  aud  archaeology,  from  a  standpoint 
of  social  science.  By  the  student  of  social  science  it  is 
seen,  that  there  existed  a  very  large  class  of  the  poor,  but 
manly,  better  fed,  self-sustaining,  hard  working  element  of 
the  pioletaries  who  were  freedmen  and  always  organized; 
and  as  we  are  assured  by  abundant  evidence  from  their  own 
inscriptions,  always  capable  of  living  well.  This  is  the  class 
which  consumed  the  products  of  the  suarii.  The  animals 
were  raised  in  southern  parts  of  the  peninsula,  in  great 
numbers  and  probably  were  of  an  excellent  breed.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  Granier  they  were  driven  or  conveyed  in  wagons 
to  Rome  alive.  The  work  of  the  pork  butchers  was  not 
confined  to  killing  and  dressing  them.  In  the  etymology 
of  the  word  “  confection  ”  w  e  have  a  history  of  a  part  of 
their  business.  The  ancient  confectioner  was  a  slaughterer 
of  swine ;  but  in  addition  to  this  work  he  prepared  his  pork 
in  a  great  number  of  ways.  He  made  sausage  meats  of 
several  varieties,  corned  pork,  smoked  bacon  and  ham,  very 
much  as  we  do  now.  From  data  which  we  have  observed, 
there  seems  to  be  little  difference  between  the  ancient  and 

mentaire  6tait  r6glS  et  ils  ne  mangeaient  pas  de  pain  fait  de  froment.”  Bo  Gnhl 
and  Koner,  Life  of  the  Greek*  and  Homans,  pp.  501-2,  after  describing  the  ■nmptn- 
oue  dishes  of  the  Homans  of  rank,  conclude  with  the  remark  on  the  poor,  that 
they  “  at  all  periods  chiefly  fed  on  porridge  (puls),  made  of  a  farinaceous  sub¬ 
stance  (far,  ador),  which  served  them  as  bread,  besides  vegetables,  such  as  cab¬ 
bage  (brassica),  turnips  and  raddishes,  leek  (porrum),  garUc  (allium),  onions  (eepa) 
pulse  (legumina),  cucumber  (cucumis),  pumpkins,  melons,  etc.”  They  bad  no 
meat  except  on  occasions  such  as  the  entertainments  of  the  Uieato*  and  the  *o- 
dalicium. 


HONOR  PAID  TO  PORK  AND  SAUSAGE.  387 


the  modern  methods  of  preserving  and  using  the  flesh  of  the 
swine.  But  there  is  one  observation  which  cannot  well  be 
avoided  here. 

Pork,  according  to  the  ancient  religions,  both  of  the  Indo- 
Europeans  and  Jews,  was  always  repudiated.  It  was  strictly 
a  proletarian  aliment.  The  reason  why  it  became  popular 
on  the  table  of  the  Christians  and  lost  its  ancient  stigma  is, 
that  the  early  Christians  were  themselves  proletaries  and 
did  not  belong  to  the  nobles  who  fed  on  fish,  fat  venison 
and  mutton.  Christianity  in  boldly  proclaiming  the  revo¬ 
lution  on  a  basis  of  equality  of  all  men,  was  not  ashamed  to 
live  up  to  its  professions.  By  far  the  largest  number  of  its 
membership  were  poor.  The  poor  freedmen  were  glad  to 
get  pork  to  eat.  The  Saviour  himself  was  one  of  them, 
without  an  atom  of  aristocracy  in  his  veins  and  consequently 
unhampered  by  old  religious  prejudices,  restrictions  or 
usages.  This  new  sect,  poor  and  persecuted,  struggling 
for  the  existence  of  its  tenets  and  its  members,  began  life 
at  Home  in  earnest,  although  born  in  J udea.  Its  first  mem¬ 
bers  were  the  poor  work  people — freedmen  and  slaves — all 
of  whom  were  not  above  a  plate  of  ham  and  eggs;  and  to 
say  the  least,  the  new  sect  exhibited  much  sound  sense  in 
calmly  adopting  the  usages  of  the  diet  and  clothing  of  the 
commons. 

Its  tenets  expressed  and  inculcated  the  new  idea  that  by 
birth  one  was  as  good  as  another ;  and  it  also  logically  and 
by  implication  defended  the  dignity  of  pork  and  sausage  as 
it  did  the  makers  of  pork  and  sausage  and  every  other  food 
available  which  was  found  palatable  and  nutritious. 

We  do  not  find  mention  either  in  the  inscriptions  or  else- 
where  of  butchers  located  at  Ostia,  the  port  of  Rome.  This, 
however,  is  accounted  for  by  the  supply  of  hogs,  sheep  and 
cattle  being  in  an  opposite  direction  from  the  emporium. 
There  is  an  abundant  mention  of  the  pecuarii ,  or  cattle 
breeders  and  their  greges  or  herds.  They  took  the  gov¬ 
ernment  pasture  lands  on  shares,  and  at  the  close  of  the 
year  paid  to  the  tax  collectors  the  share  agreed  upon. 
What  remained  over  this  amount,  which  was  paid  in  cattle, 
sheep  and  hogs  more  frequently  than  in  money,  was  their 
own  ;  and  they  sold  it  to  the  butchers  at  the  market. 

"When  the  rich  gentry  made  their  encroachment  upon  the 
public  land  and  drove  these  pecuarii  from  the  pastures,  thus 


HOME'S  ARMY  SUPPLIES. 


588 

usurped,  as  we  have  already  shown,*1  the  slaves  were  forced 
to  do  this  work ;  and  in  many  parts  of  Italy  this  ancient 
system  was  at  an  end.  Very  little  mention  is  made  of  true 
trade  unions  of  butchers  in  the  inscriptions  thus  far  discov¬ 
ered  except  those  of  the  suarii  or  pork  butchers.  Granier 
suggests  that  these  conducted  the  whole  butcher  business  of 
Rome; 32  but  this  is  a  matter  which  we  leave  in  abeyance, 
in  the  absence  of  more  exact  data. 

There  were  unions  of  workmen  whose  task  was  to  fodder 
cattle  and  other  animals  of  the  stock  farms,  One  of  these  a 
collegium  pabulariorum  is  given  us  by  Donati.83  They  were 
allied  to  the  haymakers;  for  hay  is  one  kind  of  pabulum  or 
fodder.  It  is  an  inscription  of  a  genuine  labor  union,  and 
is  curious,  showing  how  systematic  they  must  have  been  in 
getting  down  to  nice  distinctions,  something  like  the  division 
of  labor  of  the  present  day. 

We  have,  however,  an  instance  which  comes  near  making 
up  the  missing  link  connecting  the  cattle  breeders  with  the 
unions,  in  shape  of  a  genuine  collegium  faenariorum**  or 
union  of  mowers  who  prepared  the  hay  for  the  cattle  and 
sheep.  The  inscriptions,  of  which  there  are  several,  are  the 
result  of  the  labors  of  Gruter,  one  of  the  most  learned  aud 
reliable  archaeologists,  who  is  constantly  quoted  and  con¬ 
sulted  by  both  Mommsen  and  Orel  1  i.  B  it  the  discovery  of 
a  union  of  mowers  which  once  <*x  ed  at  a  fashionable 
watering  place  like  the  Puteoli,  whe  <  this  was  found,  does 
not  sufficiently  attest.  Orelli  suppli.-.-  the  gap  with  several 
other  unions  of  hay-makers 35 

si  See  chapters  on  Spartacus,  Eunus,  Athenian  and  A ristoniau. 

32  See  Histoire  des  Classes  Ouvri'e^es,  chap.  xii. 

33  Don.  Cl.  9,  n.  3  and  20. 

si  Gruter,  Inscriptiones  Antiques  Tot  us  Orhis  Romano  rum,,  175,  9. 

35  Orel!.,  Inscriptionum  Latinarum,  Co  ectio.  Nos.  45,  4,187  which  la  QtatarX 

and  No.  4,194  which  is  Gruter’s  inscription  264. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


TRADE  UNIONS. 

THE  GREAT  TRADES  VICTUALING  SYSTEM. 

How  Rome  Was  Fed — Unions  of  Fishermen — Discovery  of  a 
Strange  Inscription  at  Pompeii,  Proving  the  Political  Power 
and  Organization  of  the  Workingmen  and  Women’s  Unions 
— Female  Suffrage  in  Italy — The  Fish  Salters — Wine  Smok¬ 
ers — Union  of  Spicemen — The  G-ame-Hunters’  Organizations 
— Unions  of  Amphitheatre  Sweepers — Unions  of  Wagoners, 
Ox-Drivers,  Muleteers,  Cooks, Weighers,  Tasters  and  Milkmen 
— The  Cooking  Utensil-Makers — Unions  of  Stewards — Old 
Familiar  Latin  Names,  with  Familiar  English  Meanings  Re¬ 
produced — Gaius  and  the  Twelve  Tables — Numerous  Notes 
with  References  to  Arcbteological  Collections  and  to  Histories 
Giving  Pages  and  many  Necessary  Renderings,  of  the  Ob¬ 
scure  Curiosities  Described. 

Unions  of  fisherman,  piscatores ,l  existed  in  numbers  at 
Rome,  Ostia,  Pisse  and  other  points  on  the  sea  and  the 
mouths  of  the  Italian  streams.  Considering  the  fact  that 
fish  were  in  high  regard  with  the  wealthy  people,  the  fish¬ 
ing  business  was  extensive.  An  account  of  a  union  of  the 
piscicapii ,  published  in  the  Wiener  Jahrbiicher,2  causes 
Orelli  to  remark  that  before  elections  for  the  aediles  and 
duumvirs  in  the  municipal  cities,  the  unions  furnished 

i  Orell..  Scholce  Artifieum  et  Opijicwn,  No.  4,115.  The  inscription  of  this  pair 
of  trade  unions — the  fishermen  and  divers — reads:  “Ti.  Claudio  Esquil  Severe 
decnriali  lietori,  patrono  corporis  piscatorum  et  urinator.  QQ.  III.  eiusdem 
eorporis  ob  merita  eius  quod  hie  primus  statuas  duas,  unam  Antonini  Aug.  dom- 
ini  N.  aliam  lul  Augustae  dominae  nosti .  S.  P.  P.  unacum  Claudio  Poutiano  filio 
fuo  eq  Rom.  et  hoc  amplius  eidem  ccrpori  donaverit  HS.  X.  Milia  N.  ut  ex  usu- 
ris  eorum  quodannis  natali  suo  xvi.  kal,  Febr.  sportulae  viritim  dividautur  prae- 
Bertam  cum  navigatio  scapharum  diligentia  eius  adquisita  et  confirmata  sit.  ex 
decreto  ordinis  corporis  piscatorum  et  urinatorum  totius  alv  Tiber  quibus  ex  SC. 
coire  licet  S.  P.  P. — Romae.  Grut.  391,  1. 
o  XX.  p.  12-15,  des  Weiner  Ja/trbuchs, 


390 


ROME'S  VICTUALING  SYSTEM. 


members  to  be  voted  for  as  candidates  to  the  municipal 
offices;  and  wliat  is  more  strange,  women,  if  it  happened 
that  there  were  any  thought  proper  for  the  places.  The 
inscription  which  records  this  fact  was  found  among  the 
ruins  of  Pompeii. 

The  discovery  of  this  ancient  city  has  been  of  incalcu¬ 
lable  value  to  the  students  of  sociology,  in  affording  mod¬ 
ern  science  an  opportunity  to  compare  ancient  with  mod¬ 
ern  life  placed  in  juxtaposition.  It  brings  to  our  vision 
in  realistic  form,  such  as  no  human  being  can  for  an  in¬ 
stant  doubt,  the  social  and  political  life  and  habits  of  a 
great  people  concerning  which  the  surface  historiogra¬ 
phers  have  been  profoundly,  painfully  silent!  Who  can 
doubt  the  veracity  of  words  inscribed  on  a  tablet  of  mar¬ 
ble,  scrawled  upon  a  wall  and  having  been,  perhaps,  al¬ 
ready  a  hundred  years  or  more  in  use,  and  at  last,  in  the 
awful  eruption  of  Vesuvius,  at  whose  foot  it  stood,  over¬ 
whelmed,  buried  and  lost  to  view  under  a  thick  stratum  of 
lava  for  one  thousand  seven  hundred  years;  then  all  at 
once  dug  out,  delivered  and  held  up  to  the  gaze  of  men 
now  living,  fresh  as  though  just  from  the  chisel  of  the 
artifex  signorum  who  graved  it  for  his  brother  unionist? 
Yet  there  it  stands,  its  own  monument  for  our  blazing  en¬ 
lightenment  to  decipher.  In  modern  political  English  it 
reads  like  some  very  cranky  caucus  slate  of  a  New  York 
ward  Tammany  club.  Freely  translated  the  inscription 
reads  as  follows: 

(а)  “  Phoebus,  together  with  his  buyers,  ask3  the  peo¬ 
ple  to  vote  for  Holcon,  who  was  formerly  president  of  the 
union  and  for  C.  G.  Rufus — two  men  nominated  by  ue." 
(Meaning  two  of  our  men.) 

(б)  “Licinius  Roman  nominates  and  calls  for  the  ballot* 
of  constituents  in  favor  of  Julius  Polybius  for  superinten¬ 
dent  of  public  works.” 

( c )  w  The  members  of  the  fishermen’s  union  (nominated 
make  choice  of  Popidius  Rufus,  for  member  of  the  board 
of  public  works.” 

(d)  “  The  international  gold  workers  association  of  the 
city  of  Pompeii  demand  for  member  of  the  board  of  pub- 
works,  Cuspis  Pansa.” 

(e)  “  Serna,  with  her  boys,  ask  that  you  work  with  a  will 
at  the  election  and  secure  success,  for  the  office  of  magi*- 


WOMEN  IN  ANCIENT  POLITICS. 


391 


fcrate,  to  Julius  Simple.  He  is  a  man  in  the  fullest  sense 
of  the  word;  a  faithful  servant  of  the  people  of  Pompeii; 
a  good  man;  worthy  of  assuming  public  affairs.” 

(/)  “  Verna,  the  home-born,  with  her  pupils  in  all  right, 
and  good  faith,  put  Miss  or  Mrs.  Capella8  to  the  front  for 
a  seat  in  the  board  of  magistrates.” 

(g)  “  It  is  worthy  of  you  that  you  work  for  P.  Popid  for 
member  of  the  board  of  public  works,  with  might  and 
will.” 

(A)  “Fortune  (probably  a  female  member)  desires  the 
election  of  Marcellus.” 

This  is  all  very  simple  and  homely.  But  it  must  be  clear 
to  every  one  that  such  talk  was  confined  to  those  who 
were  federated  together  and  intimately  acquainted  with 
one  another;  not  that  we  would  arbitrarily  construe  the 
vernacular  of  a  Roman  municipal  town,  but  there  is  a  pe¬ 
culiarly  quaint  air  of  familiarity  which  savors  so  remark¬ 
ably  of  what  is  taking  place  in  the  unions  of  our  own 
cities  and  towns  that  it  seems  like  a  mirroring  of  the  an¬ 
cient  upon  modern  brotherhoods.4 

This  remarkable  find  goes  far  toward  clearing  up  points 
which  otherwise  might  leave  doubts  upon  our  statements. 

Orelli  himself  expresses  surprise,  especially  upon  the 
phases  of  woman’s  suffrage.6  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  actuating  power  at  the  bottom  of  general  elections,  it 
is  certainly  proved  by  this  inscription  that  in  the  labor 
unions,  women  had  not  only  accorded  right  but  also  a 
practical  hand  in  securing  the  choice  of  their  unions 
toward  building  up  a  democracy  among  the  ancients. 


>  We  read  this  feminine  because  the  context  shows  it  to  be  so.  Duumvir  has 
no  feminine  termination  and  they  could  not  alter  the  word  as  a  political  term. 

4  The  Latin  of  the  inscription  is  as  follows: 

fa)  “  M.  Holconium  priscum,  C.  Gaium  Rufum  Q.  Viros,  Phoebus  cum  emptorl- 
bus  suis  rogat.”  (i.  e.  eis  suifragium  fert). 

fb )  “Iulium  Polybium  aartilem,  Licinius  Romans  rogat  et  tacit.” 

(c)  ‘‘  Popidium  Rufum  iEdilem  Piscicapi  faciunt  ’’ 

(d)  0.  Cuspium  Pansam  aecilem,  Auriflces  universi  rogant.” 

ft)  Junium  Simplicem  aedilem.  Virum  amplissimum,  servatorem  Populi  Pom- 
peiani,  virum  bonum,  dignum  republica,  omni  voluntate  i'aciatis,  Sema  cum 
pueris  rogat.” 

ff)  “  Capellam  duumvirum  juri  dicundo  omni  vel  optima  voluntate  facit  Verna 
cum  discentibus.’’ 

(a)  “P.  Popidium  Secundum  iEdilum  Omni  Voluntate  Facere  dignus  est. 
fh)  “  Marcellum  Fortunata  Cupit.” 

5  Orell.,  Inscriptionum  Latinorum  Collectio,  No.  3,700.  "  Ante  comitia  duum* 
viralia  et  sedilicia  in  Municipiis  Collegia,  municipes,  et,  quod  maxirne  rnirum, 
feminas  quoque,  ut  iis,  quibus  favebant,  apud  alios  suffragarentur,  hujuscemodi 
tabellas  pubhce  proposuxsse,  ex  Pompejiorum  parietinis  nuper  compertum  eat.”' 


392 


ROME'S  VICTUALING  SYSTEM. 


In  this  inscription  we  have  not  only  a  full  verification  of 
our  oonjecture  that  the  trade  unions  were  well  organized 
about  the  time  of  the  labors  of  Christ  but  that  they  were 
federated  with  similar  communes  all  over  the  known 
world,  in  universo  and  also  that  they  achieved  so  great  a 
progress  as  to  have  actually  been  voting  their  own  mem¬ 
bers  into  municipal  offices  at  or  probably  long  before  the 
earthquake  in  A.  D.  79.  This  does  not,  however,  by  any 
means  show  that  they  were  in  the  majority.  We  have 
never  claimed  this.  Far  from  it.  The  number  of  slaves 
was  always  far  in  excess  of  the  freedmen ;  and  then,  there 
always  were  great  numbers  of  freedmen  who  would  not 
organize  and  who  were  two  indolent  to  work  either  for 
themselves  or  for  masters.6 

In  addition  to  the  fish  catchers  there  were  numerous 
craftsmen  who  made  it  their  business  to  dress,  season  and 
put  up  the  fish  in  barrels,  casks  and  packages.  These 
were  the  ancient  salarii ,’  of  the  Romans.  It  seems  to  be 
an  established  term.  Salarius  applies  in  the  inscriptions 
to  the  fish  salters;  although  it  may  apply  to  the  salting  of 
any  flesh  for  food.  Used  much  in  early  England  it  differ¬ 
entiated  into  the  wTord  “  salary.”  The  salarii  cur  a  tores 
should  be  rendered  fish  curers,8  instead  of  superintendents 
of  the  business  of  fish  salting  as  Orelii  imagines,  in  at  least 
one  case.9  We  have,  in  the  inscriptions  found  in  different 
places,  evidence  enough  to  settle  the  question  about  their 
being  organized  into  unions.  Sometimes  they  are  called 
corpores ,  bodies ;  sometimes  collegia,™  unions.  They  were 
all  engaged  in  the  vast  work  of  victualing  the  people. 

There  were  societies  of  fruit-purveyors  of  several  differ¬ 
ent  sorts.  We  have  already  spoken  of  a  queer  inscription 
at  Rome,  noted  by  Odenc,11  showing  that  one  Julius  Kpo- 
phra,  once  a  cabinet  maker,  changed  this  business  to  that 
of  apple-man  and  with  his  wife  Helen  made  a  living  near 
the  Roman  Circus.  They  seem  to  have  kept  an  apple 

«  Dr.  Bucher.  Aufstdnde  der  Unfrcien  Arbelter. 

T  Marini,  Atti,  2,  p.  294.  Corpus  ealariorum.  Orell.,  Inscriptions  Latinarum 
CoU.,  No.  1092. 

8  This  is  the  origin  of  the  modem  word  “  salary.”  In  England,  at  other  fish¬ 
eries  and  salt  woi’ks,  workmen  were  paid  in  cakes  of  salt  by  the  Romans.  See 
Pliny,  Nat.  Hist.,  XXXI.  7,  and  XLI.  fin;  Dion  Cassius,  lex.  viii.  22,  and  hi,  93. 
Digest,  2  lex.  15,  tit.  8. 

a  Orell.,  Inscr.  No.  3,464,  note,  also  No.  1,092. 

10  Supplement  to  Orelli’s  Collcctio,  by  G.  Henzfin,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  170  of  index  sub 
caption :  •  •  Varia  eollegiorum  nomina.  The  several  synonyms  are  herd  explained. 

11  Oderic,  Inscr iptiones,  p.  74. 


UNIONS  OF  SPICE  AND  WINE  MEN ,  HUNTERS  393 


stand.  So  trivial  a  circumstance  would  scarcely  have  been 
worth  the  labor  of  graving  upon  a  tablet  of  stone  to  be 
wondered  at  by  their  fellow  men  20  centuries  afterwards. 
The  more  probable  solution  is  that  he  belonged  to  the 
cabinet  makers*  union,  and  from  infirmity  or  other  disa¬ 
bility  was  pensioned  off  and  allowed  to  pick  up  an  occa¬ 
sional  denarius  by  selling  apples  in  the  open  air.  In  that 
case  the  union  would  naturally  put  his  case  on  record. 

The  vinarii ,u  or  vine  dressers,  and  the  vmitores  often 

brought  wagon  loads  of  grapes  to  the  city.  We  are  not 

informed  as  to  the  exact  manner  of  supplying  the  people 

with  these  grapes.  They  were  fruit  of  a  season  and  were 

probably  disposed  of  somewhat  as  at  present  in  any  Italian 

city.  Many  of  the  houses  of  the  rich  had  slaves  of  their 

own  who  went  to  the  open  market  places  and  procured 

these  fruits  in  their  season.  The  fruit  of  the  olive  tree 

was  sometimes  used  in  the  familv. 

«/ 

Rome  had  its  mercatores,  wholesale  and  retail,  who  al¬ 
ways  kept  a  supply  of  every  kind  of  fruit  in  season.  There 
was  a  strong  union  of  the  wine  dealers  vini  susceptor es 
legalized  in  the  code  of  Theodosius;18  and  they  are  evi¬ 
dently  the  same  as  the  vinarii  quoted  above. 

We  may  class  the  spice  dealers’  unions  also  among  the 
purveyors  of  fruit;  as  these  people  had  a  strong  organiza¬ 
tion  called  the  collegium  aromatoriorum .M  An  inscription 
proving  this,  has  been  discovered  at  Rome  and  cited  by 
Muratori. 

The  lords  of  the  land  were  often  too  dainty  to  eat  the 
common  products  we  have  enumerated  and  were  fond  of 
indulging  in  what  they  considered  the  nobler  fruits  of  the 
chase,  venatio.  Some  15  inscriptions  have  been  discov¬ 
ered  portraying  different  phases  of  this  sport  and  its  pro¬ 
ducts.  At  least  one  genuine  union  of  hunters  lias  been 
found ;  the  collegium  venatorum  brought  out  by  Muratori, 
found  in  the  vicinity  of  the  fortified  town  of  Corfinium  of 
the  Peligni  and  not  far  from  Sulmo.  Doubtless  there  was 
game  in  abundance  at  the  time  those  hunters  were  there. 

It  would  certainly  be  interesting  to  know  more  than  an 
inscription  on  a  slab  of  stone  can  tell,  in  regard  to  the 


M  Orell.,  Inscr.  Nos.  3,921,  4,302,  6,430. 

»  Cod.  Theodosii,  lib.  XVI.,  tit.  IV,  leg.  4. 

14  Muratori.  Thesaurvis  Veterum  Inscnptionum,  811,  4- 


394 


ROME'S  VICTUALING  SYSTEM 


exact  object  of  these  hunters,  away  in  the  wilds  of  the  Ap 
penines;  especially  as  they  might  have  been  runaway 
slaves  who,  under  the  protecting  shield  of  some  law  regu¬ 
lating  hunting  fraternities,  carried  on  business  here.14 
Another  inscription  cited  by  Orelli 18  under  his  “  critical 
observations  of  Hagenbuch,  portrays  a  commune  consist¬ 
ing  of  a  number  of  persons,  some  of  whose  names  are 
given,  hunting,  apparently  for  other  than  live  game;  per¬ 
haps  for  the  ores  of  copper.  It  is  credited  to  Cardinali 
and  was  found  at  Velitres.  A  still  more  singular  one  is 
that  cited  by  Gruter  and  found  at  Naples.  Orelli  places 
it  in  his  Nes  Scenica — scenes  in  nature.  Were  it  not  too 
long  we  would  give  its  rendering,  as  it  speaks  of  wild 
animals  and  scenes.  Singularly  enough  its  words  vena - 
tione  passerum,  sparrow  hunting,  is  insisted  on  by  the  great 
master 16  as  meaning  struthionum ,  of  ostriches.  We  know 
that  the  venator  passerum  sometimes  applies  to  turbot  fish¬ 
ing  ;  and  we  are  inclined  to  think,  notwithstanding  the 
great  respect  we  entertain  for  this  expounder  of  abbrevi¬ 
ations  and  hieroglyths  in  his  practices  in  archaeology,  that 
he  may  be  mistaken. 

Another  family  or  union  of  hunters;  collegium  venatorum 
is  given  by  Gruter,17  as  coming  from  Monselice  which  is 
quoted  by  this  author  not  as  a  business  union  but  as  a 
family  because  the  words  jamilia  venatoria  occur  upon 
the  stone.  Orelli,  however  calls  it  a  collegium  in  his  in¬ 
dex  to  Artes  et  Opijicia. 

A  beautiful  specimen  of  a  genuine  hunting  club,  colleg¬ 
ium  venatorum,  was  picked  up  at  Beaufort  in  France18 
which  verifies  our  suspicion,  that  some  of  the  hunters* 
unions  were  escaped  slaves  who,  without  losing  their  or¬ 
ganization  or  parting  company,  fled  to  the  far  distant  for¬ 
ests  and  there  established  themselves  in  the  new  art  of  hunt¬ 
ing,  thus  maintaining  their  existence  in  the  wilderness. 
This  is  one  theory.  We  shall  presently  speak  of  another. 
The  inscription  reads  rather  strangely.19  There  was  a 
union  of  hunters  who  used  to  fight  wild  beasts  in  the  am¬ 
phitheatre,  or  the  arena,  but  who  broke  away  through 

i*  Mur,,  Thesaw  .,  531,  2. 

H  Orell.,  No.  4,895. 

17  Gruter,  Ins*r.  Toiius  Orbis  Rom.,  484.  0. 

is  Gruter,  Inscr.  rot.  Orb.  331,  11. 

l#  Me  moires  Preseutes  a  I’Aoud. ,  d.  b,  livre  IT.  p.  399. 


GLADIATORS  FIGHTING  WILD  BEASTS.  395 


conspiracy.  It  is  well-known  that  gl adiators  most  of  whom 
were  slaves  were  compelled  to  fight  and  kill  each  other  or 
fight  and  be  killed  by  wild  beasts  on  the  sands  of  the  am¬ 
phitheatre,  enacting  scenes  of  the  most  terrible  and  bloody 
character  known  either  to  the  past  or  present  history  of 
the  human  race.  They  often  had  a  horror  and  sometimes 
were  repelled  by  their  own  conscientious  scruples,  against 
these  ghastly  scenes  enacted  in  presence  of  thousands  of 
spectators  shouting,  gloating  and  betting  on  their  bloody 
exercise  of  muscle  and  wit.  This  seems  to  have  been  a 
union  of  them  who,  apparently  in  good  faith,  had  formed 
a  conspiracy  to  escape  and  remain  together  in  the  frater¬ 
nal  bond.  At  any  rate  this  is  the  opinion  of  Orelli-Hen- 
zen.20  This  second  theory,  then,  although  somewhat  in 
contradiction  to  the  reading  of  the  inscription  quoted, 
suggests  that  the  “  collegium  venatorum  qui  ministerio  are - 
nano  fungunt”  was  no  other  than  a  union  of  servants  of 
the  ring,  a  part  of  whose  duties,  in  addition  to  what  we 
have  mentioned,  was  to  undertake  long  journeys  officially 
in  quest  of  the  wild  beasts  that  were  used  in  the  amphi¬ 
theatres,  during  the  emperors.  These  fierce  beasts  are 
known  to  have  been  sought,  and  highly  prized  by  the 
spectators  who  delighted  to  witness  a  gladiator  fighting 
an  enraged  lion,  tiger,  leopard,  wolf  or  bear.  Beaufort  is 
at  the  foot  of  the  mountains  of  Savoy  where  to  this  day, 
bears  of  a  large  size  give  the  farmers  and  herdsmen 
trouble.  Wolves  also  still  linger  among  the  great  forests 
of  the  inaccessible  mountain  slopes ;  and  although  we  are 
not  aware  of  panthers  or  tigers  or  any  of  the  largest  feline 
animals  being  found  in  modern  Italy  or  France,  yet  they 
might  have  existed  there  in  ancient  times.  But  there 
was  game  enough  to  have  attracted  the  hunters  for  the 
great  games  of  Borne. 

The  archseologists  have  found  as  many  as  five  inscrip¬ 
tions  of  these  unions  of  the  arena.  On  one  of  them  is 
written  “  arenae  gladiatorium  purganclae.”  A  union  of 
gladiators  who  clean  the  amphitheatre — giving  incontest¬ 
able  evidence  of  a  union  of  amphitheatre  cleaners.21  The 
unionists  were  not  slaves.  Slaves  had  no  privileges. 

2u  “  Collegium  Venatorum  Deensium,  qui  ministerio  arenario  fungent.  Ded. 
Kx.  deereto  Soluto  voto.” 

21  OrelL,  Collegia  Corpora  Sodalicia,  No.  7,209.  I  riser.  Lat.  Coll.,  Vol  III,  p. 
456.  Cf.  Mtmoires  PrtsenU  a  V  Academic,  Vol.  2,  p.  399,  1854. 


39  G 


ROME'S  VICTUALING  SYSTEM. 


They  were  freedmen,  and  those  we  mention  were  char¬ 
tered  and  existed  according  to  law. 

But  whatever  might  have  been  the  special  object  of  the 
hunters,  their  general  object  was,  of  course,  to  supply  the 
table  of  those  who  could  pay,  with  the  delicacies  of  the 
chase.  The  unions  had  wagon  transports  to  the  stations 
in  the  forests,  communicating  with  the  cities.  The  diffi¬ 
culty  of  taking  game  must  have  been  very  great,  consider¬ 
ing  that  gunpowder  was  not  in  use.  Bows  and  arrows 
were  used  and  for  the  manufacture  of  such  implements 
they  had  unions  of  workingmen  making  devices  for  trap¬ 
ping,  for  archery  and  harpooning.  There  being  a  great 
demand  for  them,  not  only  for  hunting  purposes  but  for 
war,  these  weapons  were  of  the  best  quality;  and  archery 
won  a  high  station  in  ancient  times  as  an  accomplishment. 

In  the  great  system  of  victualing  the  people  of  ancient 
Rome  and  its  almost  innumerable  provincial  towns  and 
cities,  some  of  which  were  fully  as  aristocratical  and  fas¬ 
tidious  as  the  Romans  themselves,  the  teamsters’  numer¬ 
ous  associations  played  a  no  inconsiderable  role.  We  find 
numerous  evidences  in  the  inscriptions,  that  they  were  at 
one  time  organized.  There  were  the  ox  drivers  jumenta- 
rii 22  who  worked  at  the  port  of  Rome  conveying  grain,  oil, 
wine  and  other  commodities  to  the  storehouses  of  the 
weighers’  and  measurers’  association,  men  sores  portuenses ." 

These  and  the  unions  of  muleteers,  coll  mulionum  et  asi- 
nariorum2*  that  existed  everywhere  in  Rome  and  out  of 
it,  did  most  of  the  work  of  conveying  provisions  from  pro¬ 
ducers  to  consumers.  Perhaps,  in  making  this  remark  -we 
are  exaggerating  somewhat  on  the  amount  of  work  ex¬ 
pected  of  them.  Their  system  was  such  that  they  could 
have  performed  it  all;  but  there  seems  never  to  have  been 
a  time  when  the  trade  unions  obtained  a  complete  control 
of  this  wrork.  The  large  class  of  capitalists 26  were  in  con¬ 
stant  competition  with  organized  labor  and  always  had  a 
large  force  of  mules  or  oxen  at  work.  Nor  must  it  be 

o 

82  One  was  found  or  observed  by  M uratori,  Thesaur.  Inzer.  511,  3.  The  second 
by  Conuegietur,  Nom.  Eat.  p.  219.  A  (hird  by  Cardmali,  Iseriz.  Velit,  p.  41,  found 
"t  Veletri.  A  fourth,  that  at  Beaufort  and  a  filth ,  prob.  at  Pisa  by  Marini,  XIII. 

Gxorn.  di  Pi  si,  p.  25. 

83  Oreil.,  laser.  Lat.  Coltectio,  No.  4,093.  Momm.  De  Coll,  et  Sodal.  Rom.  p.  97. 

2-i  Gran,  de  Cassagn.,  Hist,  des  Classes  Ouvrilres.  p.  510,  Grut,  462,  1.  Orel}., 

Coll.  Pubiica  et  Privata,  No.  7,194. 

2D  Idem  No.  7,206,  coll,  muiionum  et  asinariorum. 


UNIONS  CHAMPIONED  BY  C  LODI  US.  397 


understood  that  anything  like  all  the  work  of  any  kind, 
was  a  great  length  of  time,  ever  performed  by  the  unions 
alone.  The  competition  between  the  unions  and  the  spec¬ 
ulators  must  have  raged  with  activity  for  at  least  200 
years,  and  finally  the  hatred  of  the  speculating  oligarchy 
went  into  legislation. 

After  endless  turmoils,  among  which  the  unions,  cham¬ 
pioned  by  Clodius,  not  only  restored  their  old  rights  of 
organizations  but  gained  many  more,  the  struggle  culmi¬ 
nated  in  Csesar  suppressing  nearly  all  of  them.  But  the 
unionists  were  strong  and  influential  and  in  course  of  time, 
after  the  death  of  Cicero,  Caesar  and  other  enemies,  they 
reassumed  most  of  their  fallen  power.  Nothing  was  able 
to  grind  them  out  entirely. 

History  gives  us  little  in  regard  to  the  methods  by 
which  the  armies  of  the  ever  victorious  Romans  were  sup¬ 
plied  with  provisions.  If  there  is  any  mention  by  histor¬ 
ians  of  a  union  or  association  of  sutlers  who  made  it  their 
business  to  supply  the  armies  stationed  upon  Roman  ter¬ 
ritory,  we  have  failed  to  find  it.  There  are  inscriptions, 
however,  which  are  beginning  to  reveal  a  subject  pregnant 
of  importance  in  solving  misty  queries  regarding  the  phe¬ 
nomenal  successes  of  Roman  arms.  We  have  already 
shown  that  from  the  end  of  Numa’s  reign  the  Roman  arm¬ 
ies  were  supplied  with  arms  in  a  great  degree  by  the 
unions  of  armorers. 

It  is  here  relevant  to  prove,  if  possible,  that  they  were 
also  supplied  by  them  with  provisions.  For  at  least  500 
years  the  armies  used  union  made  wagons,  union  made 
swords,  union  made  javelins,  bows  and  arrows,  helmets 
and  shields,  wore  union  made  shoes,  trowsers,  hats  and 
coats,  and  tore  down  the  walls  and  battlements  of  their 
enemies  with  union  made  catapults  and  battering  rams. 
Did  they  not  eat  union  made  bread,  union  cured  meat  and 
drink  the  delicious  wines  and  beverages  prepared  by  the 
organized  victualers?  True,  when  far  away  in  their  for¬ 
eign  conquests  the  Roman  soldiers  depended  much  upon 
the  pillage  and  plunder  of  their  unfortunate  victims ;  but 
at  home,  when  the  armies  were  at  quarters  this  question 
sharply  applies.  The  student  of  sociology  is  particularly 
interested  in  this  subject,  because  this  matter  of  union 
labor  in  supplying  the  legions  goes  far  in  settling  the  long 


m 


ROME'S  VICTUALING  ST  ST  EM. 


mooted  problem  hanging  over  the  decline  and  fall  of 
Rome. 

Rome  prospered  in  peace  and  in  arms,  until  the  glut  of 
conquest  changed  her  statesmen  from  the  wise  tolerance 
of  Numa  and  Servius  Tullius  to  the  rapacious  slave -hold¬ 
ing  policy  which  sought  to  destroy  the  unions  that  made 
possible  her  unparalleled  success.  But  when  gorged  with 
enormous  wealth,  she  lost  her  manhood  and  swine-like 
fell  upon  and  devoured  her  own  nurslings  and  friends. 
The  sin  struck  back  upon  herself  like  the  fangs  of  the 
tortured  crotalus  and  poisoned  her  own  blood  with  a 
reacting  plague  of  ingratitude  and  pollution. 

The  stones  have  already  revealed  to  us  that  there  ex¬ 
isted  unions  of  victualers  who  made  a  business  of  supply¬ 
ing  the  armies.  They  were  called  “collegia  castrensiari- 
orum,”  28  sutlers.  We  are  not  informed  of  the  exact  rela¬ 
tion  they  had  with  the  armies;  whether  like  our  sutlers 
they  hung  around  the  flanks  and  peddled  with  the  sold¬ 
iers,  or  whether  they  supplied  the  armies  by  contract  with 
the  senate  or  consular  generals. 

In  addition  to  the  unions  already  mentioned  we  find 
that  the  cooks  and  waiters  also  had  their  organization  of 
self-help.  They  may  all  be  classed  as  one  family  or  com¬ 
mune,  although  in  some  cases  at  least,  the  cooks  and  the 
waiters  were  apart.  In  the  inscriptions  there  are  three 
unions  of  cooks;  one  a  “collegium  coctorum”  27  who  took 
charge  of  the  stately  business  of  cookery  in  the  palace  of 
Augustus  Csesar,  at  Borne.  Another  is  mentioned  on  the 
slab  as  “cocus,” 28  a  cook  which  was  found  at  Rome  and  is 
cited  by  Marini,29  and  the  third  also  speaks  of  a  man  who 
was  an  Alban  cook,  evidently  president  of  the  society.  It 

was  found  on  the  site  of  the  ancient  citv  of  Alba. 

%/ 

Mommsen  cites  the  “collegium  praegustatorum’’30  men¬ 
tioned  by  Gruter  as  a  genuine  trade  union  of  waiters,  who, 
as  this  designation  implies,  were  foretasters  as  well  as 
waiters.  The  rich  in  Rome  were  ever  beset  with  fears  of 
being  poisoned.  They  were  obliged  to  have  their  food  tasted 

28  See  Bucher,  “Aufstiinde  der  Unfreien  Arbeiter,”  pp.  3-10.  Geldoligarkie, 

Pauperismus,  Sklaventhum. 

27  Orell.,  Nos.  7,189,  6,314  and  elsewhere.  Also  Gruter,  “Inscriptionea  An¬ 
tique  Totius  Orbis  Romanorum,”  649,  5.  and  several  others. 

28  Cardinali,  “Dipl.”  410.  29  Marini,  “Atti,”  2,  p.  610. 

29  Romanelli,  “Topog.”  I,  3,  p.  213.  81  Grut.,  “Inscr.,  Antiqu.,”  681,  IS 

80  Momra.,  “De  Coll,  et  Sodal.  Rom.,”  p.  78,  note  25. 


SPLENDID  WORK  OF  TEE  UNIONS, 


399 


of  by  the  waiter  in  their  presence.  If  the  waiter  ate  it 
with  impunity  they  need  have  no  fears.  The  waiters  be¬ 
ing  in  constant  communication  with  the  cooks  were  sup¬ 
posed  to  know  all  the  dangerous  designs  that  might  origi¬ 
nate  among  the  kitchen  people,  to  be  consummated  in  the 
dining  rooms  ;  and  were  thus  held  responsible  for  the 
honesty  of  both  themselves  and  the  cooks.  They  were 
required  to  taste  the  milk  they  served  to  the  gentry  direct 
from  the  jugs  or  pots,  ampullae  of  the  milk  men,  or  the 
collegium  lacticariorum  a  milkman’s  union  mentioned  by 
Mommsen*1  as  a  corpus  or  labor  union.  This  interlinking 
of  many  trades,  whose  sympathies  and  contact  sometimes 
fitted  them  for  carrying  out  cunningly  concocted  plots 
with  the  waiter  thus  became  practically  a  sort  of  key  to 
the  treachery.  Even  the  manufacturers  of  these  milk  jars 
had  unions,  one  of  which,  in  the  collection  of  Gruter  was 
found  inscribed  on  a  slab  of  slate  or  stone  discovered 
at  Narbonne.32 

A  stone  has  been  dug  up  bearing  the  inscription  colleg¬ 
ium  vasulariorum.  It  exhibits  the  relics  of  a  union  of 
manufacturers  of  cooking  utensils.  Most  of  their  produc¬ 
tions  were  of  copper  or  bronze.  The  vascula  were  of  vari¬ 
ous  shapes;  spits,  ladles,  cups,  bowls,  soup  spoons  and 
many  other  implements  of  cookery.  Hammer  work  with 
the  ancient  artisans  was  a  fine  art.  Sometimes  the  best 
workmen,  if  not  slaves,  had  organizations,  which  were 
called  the  malleatores ,  hammerers  and  are  mentioned  by 
Orelli  as  inscribed  on  a  stone.83 

There  also  were  the  basket  makers’  unions  the  products 
of  whom,  sportulae,  figure  in  the  decree  of  laws  governing 
sacred  unions  as  found  in  the  Roman  temple  of  Barber- 
inis  and  given  in  full  by  Orelli  in  No.  2,417  of  his  great 
collection,  which  is  in  itself  a  curiosity.  Other  dishes 
used  by  the  cooks  were  two-eared  flagons  or  flasks  for 
wine  and  other  liquors,  amphorae,  besides  a  number  of 
others,  for  nearly  all  of  which  we  have  proof  of  unions  hav¬ 
ing  existed,  who  conducted  their  manufacture. 

Finally  the  tricliniarchs  or  stewards  who  had  the  su¬ 
preme  charge  of  kitchen  and  dining  room.  Their  name 

**  Gruter,  Inscription**  Totiu*  Orbit  Romanorum,  643. 10. 

**  Orell  ,  Insbriptionum  Latinorum  Col  lectio,  No.  3,220. 

*3  Fabrett,  p.  724.  443. 


400 


ROME'S  VICTUALING  SYSTEM. 


was  derived  from  the  celebrated  triclinium  or  dining-couch 
of  the  ancients.  It  was  a  seat,  generally  cushioned,  which 
extended  around  three  sides  of  the  table,  upon  which 
people  did  not  sit,  but  reclined — a  practice  so  demonstra¬ 
tive  of  exuberant  luxury,  if  not  of  lasciviousness  that  it 
was  abolished  as  one  of  the  abominations  by  the  Chris¬ 
tians  and  seems  to  have  completely  disappeared  from  the 
earth.  There  is  extant  at  least  one  monument  giving  clear 
evidence  of  a  society  of  this  kind,  called  in  the  inscrip¬ 
tion  34  tricliniarum  socii.  It  is  in  the  museum  of  Rome  and 
bears  a  very  queer,  unpolished  style  of  Latin. 

84  Fabett,  448.  60. 


CHAPTER  XVn. 


INDUSTRIAL  COMMUNES 

AMUSEMENTS  OF  OLD.  UNIONS  OF  PLAYERS. 

The  Collegia  Sclenicorum — Unions  of  Mimics — Horrible  Mimic 
Performances  in  Sicily — Bloody  Origin  of  Wakes — Unions 
of  Dancers,  Trumpeters,  Bagpipers,  and  Hornblowers — The 
Flute-Players — Roman  Games — Unions  of  Circus  Performers 
— Ot  Gladiators — Of  Actors — Murdering  Robust  Wrestlers 
for  Holiday  Pastimes — Unions  of  Fortune-tellers — Proofs  in 
the  Inscriptions — Ferocious  Gladiatorial  Scenes  between  the 
Workingmen  and  Tigers,  Lions,  Bears,  and  Other  Wild  Beasts 
made  compulsory  by  Roman  Law. 

The  Greeks  and  Homans  are  known  to  have  given  at  an 
early  period  much  attention  to  amusements,  in  which  it 
appears  there  was  a  larger  admixture  of  the  lowly,  with 
the  noble  class  than  occurred  in  other  pursuits.  The 
theatre  with  the  Greeks,  was  quite  a  democratic  affair. 
The  earliest  theratres  were  rude ;  but  during  the  heroic 
ages  immense  buildings  were  constructed.  That  of  Me- 
gapolis  in  Arcadia  was  of  gigantic  size.  Their  size  was 
such  that  roofs  were  out  of  the  question,  and  people  sat 
on  stone  seats  for  from  four  to  eight  hours  in  daytime 
exposed  to  sun  and  rain,  during  the  performances,  listen¬ 
ing  to,  and  bound  up  in  enthusiastic  delight  over  the  ini¬ 
mitable  sallies  of  Aristophanes  in  the  “Babylonians,”  s  a  tyr¬ 
ing  the  tyrant  Cleon,  or  thrilled  by  the  sublime  grandeur 
of  tragedy  and  mimic  of  Sophocles  and  Euripides  at 
Athens.  Some  of  the  great  theatres  were  capable  of  hold¬ 
ing  60,000  spectators.  The  great  theatre  at  Ephesus  was 
660  feet  in  diameter  and  one  in  Syracuse  440  feet.  An 
immense  wooden  theatre,  built  by  Scaurus  at  Rome,  55 


ORGANIZED  AMU  SEDA 


yean  before  Christ,  and  at  the  moment  when  intolerance 
to  the  labor  unions  and  profligacy  among  the  grandees 
were  beginning  to  crumble  the  proud  Romans  into  de¬ 
moralization  and  decay,  was  capable  of  accommodating 
80,000  people. 

We  find  no  fewer  than  six  genuine  trade  unions;  called, 
on  the  stones,  collegia  scaenicorum.1  They  are  coeval  with 
the  age  of  the  Roman  theatres.  Their  members  of  course, 
fared  better  than  the  gladiators,*  another  class  who  con¬ 
tributed  to  the  Roman  pastimes;  but  they  were  hard- 
worked  people  and  all  belonged  to  the  proletaries. 

We  shall  bring  to  view  as  illustrative  of  our  object, 
principally  the  Roman  life  in  this  section  of  the  ancient 
trade  unions,  not  because  we  are  wanting  of  archaeologi¬ 
cal  specimens ;  for  there  are  very  many  profoundly  in¬ 
teresting  relics  of  the  life  of  ancient  labor  now  being  dis¬ 
covered  among  the  ruins  of  the  Greeks.  Renan,  Wescher, 
Foucart  and  Bockh  have  eloquently  told  the  story  and 
the  solemn  silence  of  crumbling  marbles,  like  skeletons 
seem  to  be  speaking  in  incoherent  phrase  of  a  day  when 
the  whole  Greek  world  was  ablaze  with  labor  communes, 
whose  secrecy  was  suggestive  of  a  smouldering  social 
volcano.  But  if  we  gave  them  all  it  would  make  this 
work  tediously  voluminous.  Besides,  the  inscriptions  in 
the  Latin  tongue  seem  to  bring  the  matter  under  inves¬ 
tigation  more  conspicuously  before  us,  not  only  because 
they  are  topographically  less  remote  but  because  the  lan- 
gauge  in  which  they  come  to  us  is  smoother  and  more  in¬ 
telligible  to  the  readers  of  the  western  world. 

In  the  Wiener  J ahrbuch  for  1829  there  appeared  a  de¬ 
ciphering  of  an  inscription  on  a  plate  of  bronze  containing 
an  epitaph  of  the  president  of  a  union  of  mimic  actors. 
It  is  written  in  the  second  person.  He  had  lived  to  be 
nearly  a  hundred  years  old ;  had  never  aspired  above  his 
fellows  and  had  died  bidding  them  farewell  It  is  in  the 
Museum  at  Pesth.  Several  others  have  been  found  in 
Austrian  territory.  Orelli*  describes  several  anaglyphs 


i  One  found  at  Wasserstadt,  Aqucemtum ,  a  suburb  of  Bud*,  by  Labus  sad 

Snblished  at  Milan,  1827  reads:  “  Genio  Collegio  Soaaniariortun  Felan,  Seoundus 

lonitor  Decreto  Decurionum. 

-  Chapter  xii.,  Spartacus,  init. 

8  Orelli,  Insc riptionum  Latinorum  Coilectio,  In  hi*  QMtgta  Cbrporu,  driaMdl 

No.  7,188.  Vol.  Ill,  Henzen. 


A  CURIOUS  STONE. 


403 


in  stone  and  metal  composition,  which  have  withstood  the 
erosions  of  nature  fully  2,000  years.  In  the  Res  Scaenica 
and  ImcU ,  one  is  quoted  from  Muratori,4  hearing  uncer¬ 
tain  evidence  that  it  was  a  union  of  histrionic  artists.  It 
was  from  Prseneste.  Two  remarkable  tablets  bearing 
record  of  the  year  112  A.  D.  are  noted  by  Gorins.5  They 
were  preserved  in  the  museum  at  Florence,  and  unless 
recently  removed,  are  there  still.  Upon  these  slabs  are 
inscribed  the  names  of  soldiers  of  the  seven  Roman  co¬ 
horts,  of  the  praetorian  force  of  Misenum  ever  on  the  alert 
conducting  the  scenic  plays.  Claudius  Gnorimus  is  be¬ 
ing  made  an  aedile  or  superintendent  of  public  works  by 
the  battalion;  plays  are  going  on  by  the  acting  comrades 
with  their  buffoons.  Among  all  these  are  to  be  observed: 
1st.  The  head  mimic  actor ;  2d.  The  mimic  Greek  lead¬ 
ers;  3d.  The  clowns;  4th.  The  Greek  clowns ;  5th.  The 
Greek  actors;  6th.  The  jesting  dandies;  7th.  A  working¬ 
man.  All  the  names  of  the  soldiers  are  given  in  the  vo¬ 
cative  case.  Consequently  the  inscription  is  too  lohg  to 
be  given  entire  in  any  work  which  we  have  seen.  It 
portrays  the  kind  of  military  theatrical  scene  which  used 
to  be  enacted  200  years  after  the  beginning  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  era,  or  about  1,700  years  ago  and  of  course,  much 
earlier.6  Another  inscription  appears  among  the  Res 
Scaenica  in  Orelli’s  catalogue  which  still  more  clearly  rep¬ 
resents  a  mutually  protective  union  of  actors.  It  was 
found  at  the  French  city  of  Vienne,  a  few  miles  from  Ly¬ 
ons,  on  the  Rhone,  by  Millin.7  It  is  also  very  ancient 
and  shows  that  in  that  far  off  country  of  the  Allobroges 
there  was  a  great  population  long  before  Caesar’s  inva¬ 
sion. 

Although  we  are  endeavoring  to  give  the  facts  consec- 


*  Muratori,  Thesaur.,  G59,  1;  Gruter,  laser.  Tot.  Orb.  Rom.,  330, 3. 

6  Cf.  Etruscan  laser..  I.  p.  125  and  II,  p.  447  and  Mur.,  S86-887, 

6  Consult  Orellius,  Inscriptionum  Latmarum  Collectio,  No.  2,603.  Muratori, 
Thesaur,  886-7.  Gorius  Etr. ,  I.  p,  128.  “  Meinorabiles  sunt  tabulae  anni  p.  Chr. 
212,  duae  a  Gorio  Etr.  1.  p.  125  (2,447).  et  Mur.  8b6  et  887  editae,  Florent.iae  nunc 
adsertae,  in  quibus  referuntur  nomina  militum  ex  Coliortibus  VII.  Vigiliun  et 
Classis  praetoriae  Misenatis,  qui  Ludos  scenicos  egerunt,  quuna  Claudius  Gnori¬ 
mus  aedilis  factus  easet  a  vexillatione,  ludosque  ederet,  ‘  agentibus  commilitoni- 
bus  cum  suis  acroamatibus  ’  In  liis  notandi:  1.  Arcliimimus.  2.  Archimiml 
Graeci.  3.  Stupidi.  4  Stupidi  Graeci.  5.  Scaenici  Graeci.  6.  Scurra.  7.  Oper 
arius.  Omnia  militum  nomina  vocativo  efferuntur,”  For  more  on  then exillum. 
red  flag,  and  vexillatio ,  consult  our  chapter  on  the  ancient  red  flag  oi  the  work 
ingman. 

7  Voyage,  2,  p.  21. 


404 


ORGANIZED  AMU  SEES. 


utively,  we  shall  here  be  compelled,  for  want  of  data,  to 
mention  in  an  anacoluthical  manner,  some  of  the  most 
interesting  of  these  unions  known  to  have  existed  coeval 
with  those  times,  or  approximately  so. 

The  communiones  mimorum ,  one  of  which8  was  dis¬ 
covered  in  the  ruins  of  the  theatre  Bovillensis,  and  others 
in  great  numbers  in  Greece9  and  elsewhere,  were  unions 
of  mimic  actors.  They  constituted  an  order  by  them 
selves.  It  appears  that  they  marched  around  in  the  cities 
and  took  from  their  friends  and  the  public  whatever  gifts 
were  offered.  We  mention  these  data  to  exhibit  to  our 
readers  the  collossal  scale  on  which  amusements  were 
conducted,  that  the  mind  may  be  prepared  to  compre¬ 
hend  the  vast  amount  of  labor  of  the  lowly,  which  the  evo¬ 
lutions  of  this  business  entailed. 

Following  up  our  scheme  of  inquiry  into  the  dark  chasms 
and  gaps  of  history,  from  a  standpoint  of  sociological  in¬ 
vestigation,  our  point  of  intensest  interest  is  the  question 
whether  these  purveyors  of  pastimes  were  organized.  Of 
this  there  is  abundance  of  evidence  in  the  inscriptions. 
In  the  catalogue  of  the  archaeologist  Orelli,  there  appear 
no  less  than  12  tolerably  well  preserved  slabs  which  show 
not  less  than  a  hundred  unions  ! 

At  Rome  there  is  an  inscription,  much  broken  and  de¬ 
faced  by  time  and  neglect,10  which  bears  positive  proof 
that  the  theatre  players  were  not  only  organized  but  that 
they,  like  the  gladiators  belonged  to  the  plebeian  stock. 
Caput  VI.,  of  Orelli’s  work,  headed  Ludi ,  Res  Scaeniea  et 
cet.,  has  no  less  than  116  inscriptions,  a  large  number 
of  which  are  seen  at  a  glance  to  be  either  genuine  unions 
or  corporate  communes.  But  as  some  of  these  unions 
were  those  of  gladiators,  we  reserve  their  description  for 
that  more  tragical  and  brutal  class  of  amusement. 

A  very  remarkable  mimic  performance  for  enjoyment 
was  once  in  vogue  during  the  insurrection  of  the  Sicilian 
slaves  B.  C.  143-134.  It  may  not  be  generally  known 
that  in  addition  to  accredited  kings  and  t}rrants  of  Sicily 
there  once  reigned  a  king  of  the  slaves.  The  extraordi- 

8  Orell.,  laser..  No.  2,625,  also  Nos.  4,094. 4,101. 

9  Mommsen,  De  Colie giis  et  Sodaliciis  Romunorum,  p.  83.  “Communia  mim¬ 
orum  Romanorum,  et  in  nomine  et  in  institutis  rd  *pivd  tui>  nepi  r'ov  Aiorvaoi 
rexviTMi>  referent,  quae  apud  Graacos  ampla  et  plurima  fuerunt.”  Idem,  note  6, 

**  Communia  Mimorum  multa  inveniuntur,”  etc.,  etc. 

U  Orell.,  No.  2,619;  Marini,  Atti.  2,  p.  488. 


FOOD  OF  TEE  WORK  PEOPLE. 


405 


nary  history  of  king  Eunus  is  so  interesting  and  so  re¬ 
plete  with  passages  which  enlighten  the  student  of  so¬ 
ciology  on  points  that  we  have  reserved  for  it  a  separate 
chapter  as  a  special  illustration  of  our  theme.11  It  is 
enough  here  to  bring  forward  the  episode  alluded  to  in 
evidence  of  the  fact  that  in  ancient  times  theatrical  per¬ 
formances  were  sometimes  conducted  in  presence  of  ene¬ 
mies  whereby  to  tantalize  and  to  wreak  revenge.  The 
Sicilian  capitalists,  landlords  and  slaveholders  had  for  a 
long  time  been  growing  niggardly  and  cruel.  It  was  a 
common  thing  for  a  slave  master  owning  from  500  to 
1,000  slaves,  to  call  their  poor  little  children  together 
precisely  as  the  herder  calls  his  swine,  and  feed  them 
nuts,  pods  and  dried  figs 12  because  the  helpless,  enslaved 
and  horribly  cruelized  beings  were  considered  no  better 
than  hogs.  One  Polias,  an  enormously  wealthy  Agrigen- 
tine  not  only  thus  abused  his  slaves  but  often  whipped 
large  numbers  of  them  at  the  post  at  night,  to  prepare 
them  for  obedience  the  following  day.  Pamophilus,  who 
owned  500  slaves  at  Enna  in  Sicily,  was  another  extremely 
rich  planter.  He  starved  his  human  chattels,  while  at 
the  same  time  driving  them  beyond  their  powers.  One 
day  several  of  them  ventured  to  ask  him  for  more  cloth¬ 
ing  ;  for  the  place  is  many  feet  above  the  sea  and  chilly 
during  some  seasons  of  the  year.  Their  supplication 
though  given  in  a  respectful  manner  was  treated  not 
only  with  refusal  but  with  a  severe  castigation.  His  wife, 
Megallis,  was,  if  possible,  the  most  heartless  and  brutal  of 
the  two.  She,  with  her  own  hand  stabbed  and  whipped 
to  death  several  of  her  female  slaves,  first  torturing  them 
with  her  knife  and  her  stiletto  or  needle.13  Unable  to  en¬ 
dure  their  inhuman  tortures  the  infuriated  slaves  sud¬ 
denly  arose  in  rebellion  and  seizing  their  tormentors 
murdered  them  in  great  numbers.  Pamophilus  was  blud¬ 
geoned  in  the  theatre  of  Enna  in  presence  of  his  wife, 
Megallis.  A  council  was  held  on  her  case,  before  her 
husband’s  dead  body,  in  the  theatre.  Our  authority  does 

11  8ee  Chap.  VII.  An  account  of  the  Mimic  plays  at  the  sieges,  pp.  229-230. 

12  See  Dr.  Biicher,  Aufst&nde  der  Unfreien  Arbeiter ,  p.  63-64,  quoting  Stot*na 
cm  Florilus,  LXII,  48.  We  have  also  in  many  places  given  quotations  proving 
inis  by  other  authors.  See  index.  Food  oj  the  Slaves  and  Frtedmen. 

is  Consult  chapter  *v  On  Eunus.  and  the  first  Sicilian  war,  where  quota¬ 
tions  explaining  these  b;utalities,  taken  from  the  fragments  of  Diodorus,  are 
given,  together  with  excerpts  from  Bucher  and  others. 


406 


ORGANIZED  AM  USERS, 


not  establish  that  the  mimic  performance  was  gone 
through  with  during  the  wild  gloatings  of  that  bloody 
night;  but  no  doubt  the  tables  were  turned  upon  the 
trembling  millionaires  who  before  were  wont  to  shout 
with  almost  equal  savagery  at  the  mutual  murder  of  their 
myrmidons  acting  as  their  slaves.  The  result  of  the  trial 
of  Megallis,  was  her  condemnation  and  sentence  to  death. 
She  was  dragged  to  a  rock  and  plunged  headlong  into 
the  hideous  abyss  by  the  women  themselves.  Their 
daughter,  a  tender  girl  who  had  many  times  remonstrated 
against  her  mother’s  cruelty,  was  treated  with  respectful 
courtesy,  guarded  from  danger  and  under  escort  sent  to 
a  place  of  safety.  This  uprising  lasted  10  years ;  during 
which  time  many  places  were  captured  by  siege.  The 
slaves  who,  according  to  history,14  at  length  arose  to  the 
number  of  200,000  in  Sicily,  inaugurated  the  system  of 
holding  histrionic  mimes  composed  in  their  own  rude 
vehicles  of  thought  and  represented  by  performers  who 
could  best  reproduce,  in  presence  of  their  previous  tor* 
mentors,  scenes  which  they  and  their  children  had  suf¬ 
fered  when  they  were  chattels.  In  this  manner  they 
doubtless  wreaked  a  rude  and  gloating  satisfaction  too 
malignant  for  true  humanity,  but  certainly  not  surpris¬ 
ing,  considering  their  former  misery.14 

Spartacus,  the  celebrated  gladiator,  after  the  battle  of 
Picenum,  when  he  held  in  his  hands  the  officers  and  men 
of  the  Roman  army  as  prisoners  of  war,  although  a 
humane  and  kind-hearted  general,  delighted  his  soldiers 
by  compelling  those  proud  and  high-born  gentiles  to  re¬ 
enact  upon  the  field  of  battle  and  in  honor  of  the  manes 
of  Crixus  their  fallen  hero,  the  same  gladiatorial  scenes 
which  he  and  his  comrades  when  slaves,  were  destined 
to  perform  on  the  arena.  In  the  captive’s  hand  was  put 
the  gladium  and  in  the  humiliating  garb  of  an  ergastular- 
ius,  or  convict,  condemned  to  fight  in  the  mock  amphi¬ 
theatre  and  for  his  audience  the  vast  army  of  victorious 
rebel  slaves  and  gladiators,  many  a  haughty  Roman  knight 
with  his  unspeakable  contempt  for  the  very  condition  of 

14  For  all  known  particulars  of  this  great  servile  war,  »«  BQcher,  Auijtdndt 

der  Unfreien  Arbeiter. 

15  Bucher,  Aufst.,  S.  66-67.  Dlod.  XXXIV.,  frag.  34.  LBdara.  DU  Du/nynjun 
Kiinstler,  pp.  105-131, where  are  explained  the  numerous  theatrical  habits  to  which 

the  Greek  artisans  were  addicted. 


ORIGIN  OF  WAKES. 


407 


slavery,  was  forced  to  make  the  runs  and  re-enact  the 
bloody  work  it  had  been  the  now  victorious  rebels’  own 
undignified  misfortune  to  perform  upon  the  Roman  sands. 
Surely,  the  knights  of  Lentulus,  Poplicola  and  the  other 
captured  soldiers  could  now  have  a  practical  insight  into 
the  causes  of  the  great  insurrection,  when,  under  sting¬ 
ing  urgents  of  their  mock  scliolae  praecep  tores,  they 
punched  each  other,  to  the  music  of  jeer  and  of  derision 
from  70,000  vengeance-wreaking  infuriates! 

Wakes 16  held  over  the  deceased  bodies  of  friends  are 
not  of  Christian  origin  but  of  a  much  higher  Pagan  an¬ 
tiquity.  Again,  where  history  is  silent,  the  inscriptions 
— those  whispering  chroniclers  like  grinning  skeletons 
of  the  murdered — survive  to  lisp  their  testimony  be¬ 
fore  our  courts  of  science.  This  subject  of  the  origin  and 
practice  of  holding  wakes,  supposed  by  some  to  belong 
to  the  Christianized  races,  is  really  to  be  sought  among 
the  stones  which  tell  the  savage  tales  of  haughty  masters’ 
funeral  feasts  whereat  poor  workingmen  were  forced  to 
fight  as  gladiators ;  and  when  they  fell  by  mutually  inflicted 
gashes,  were  buried  beside  the  great  dead  hero  with  the 
object  of  remaining  guard  to  him  as  they  had  done  in  life. 
This  is  the  true  origin  of  wakes.  They  were  originally, 
extremely  bloody,  and  should  be  classed  among  other 
specimens  of  moribund  or  fading  heathen  customs,  that 
are  gradually  disappearing  from  the  earth. 

Scholars  reading  the  Latin  classics,  are  sometimes  puz¬ 
zled  to  comprehend  the  reason  why  Cicero,  Suetonius, 
Florus  and  the  rest,  so  unexceptionally  speak  of  the  dan¬ 
cer,  saltator;  the  female  dancer,  saltatrix ,  and  the  little  girl 
dancer,  saltalricula,  with  a  species  of  contumely.  Of 
everything  not  human,  however  humble,  they  could  speak 
in  praise.  Their  favorite  horses,  dogs,  cats,  even  cows 
could  earn  a  good  word  and  a  caress;  and  all  things  ger¬ 
mane  to  their  household  were  worthy  of  a  feeling  thought. 
But  it  is  a  seemingly  strange  fact  that  dancers  who  worked 
so  hard  to  amuse  the  ancients,  get  only  a  reproachful 
mention. 

Among  amusements  it  may  be  best  to  class  the  various 
kinds  of  musical  instrument  players.  There  was  a  regular 
union  of  the  trumpeters,  aenatoresN  Another  sort  of 

o  Friedlander,  Da-tlcUungcn  aua  der  Sittcngeschich'.c  Hums.  II,  16. 


408 


ORGANIZED  AMUSERS. 


trumpeter  was  the  buccinator ,  who  played  the  sh«j)*ar^fs 
horn  which  had  a  long  range  of  sound.18  These  trumpet¬ 
ers  also  accompanied  the  army.  Usually  the  home*  were 
crooked.  Mommsen  who  has  worked  out  the  evidences 
in  regard  to  the  Roman  arrangement  of  centurians,  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  the  military  notions  which  distributed  the 
trade  unions  into  squads  of  tens  and  hundreds,  thinks  that 
another  trumpeter,  the  liticen 19  also  had  his  union,  prob¬ 
ably  a  mutually  protective  association  like  the  musicians* 
unions  of  the  present  time.  The  liticenes ,  were  clarion 
blowers  and  their  music  was  shrill  and  exciting.  Still  an¬ 
other  kind  of  trumpeters  were  the  tubicenes 20  who  are  like¬ 
wise  known  to  have  been  an  organized  profession  or  trade. 
They  played  the  tuba.  It  is  difficult  to  understand  how 
a  separate  society  was  necessary  for  each  instrument.  If 
there  were  a  number  of  different  instruments  in  each, 
corresponding  to  a  band  of  music  organized  for  self-sup¬ 
port,  as  in  our  times,  it  would  not  appear  remarkable. 

The  union  of  scabillarii 21  does  not  appear  so  inconsist¬ 
ent  ;  since  the  ancient  scabellium  was  an  awkward  instru¬ 
ment  played  upon  by  the  feet,  while  very  probably  the 
hands  were  also  employed  thrumming  another  instrument 
whose  harmonies  combined,  made  a  band  of  themselves. 
The  bagpipe  is  known  to  be  an  ancientinstrument- — so  old 
that  its  invention  is  ascribed  to  a  god  of  the  mythical  an¬ 
tiquity.  Whether  the  old  tibia  utricularis  was  the  identi¬ 
cal  bagpipe  of  the  Scotch  Highlanders  is  a  question;  but 
judging  from  the  derivation  of  the  word  there  is  a  strong 
reason  to  suppose  that  no  great  change  has  taken  place  in 
its  construction.  The  bagpipers  had  an  association  called 
the  collegium  utricularium 22  and  there  are  several  inscrip¬ 
tions  to  that  effect.  In  addition  to  the  one  found  by  Do- 
nati,  we  have  one  described  in  Gruter’s  collection  and  cat¬ 
alogued  by  Orelli.”  It  was  found  at  Lyons.  It  is  some¬ 
thing  like  an  epitaph  and  the  work  bears  the  marks  of 
having  been  dedicated  to  the  name  of  the  president,  mag - 

17  Of  this  we  have  assurance  In  the  work  of  Grater,  Inscriptiones  Totiut  OHA 
Rcmmorum,  No.  201,  4;  a  marble  slab  giving  unmistakable  evidenoe. 

Idem,  1,116,  4.  x»  Orell.,  Inter.,  No.  4,106. 

*  Idem,  Nos.  2,448  and  1,808  both  were  collegia  or  onions. 

8i  Orell.  Inter .  4,117 ;  2,648. 

*2  Orell.,  Nos.  4,119,  4,120,  4,121,  all  were  unions,  also  Donat!,  2,  p.  470,  •, 
cites  a  stone  found  at  Oabelli,  wnich  has  merited  considerable  comment.  The 
Inscription  registers  a  genuine  union 

»  Orell. ,  Inter.  Lai  Coll.  No.  4,244.  Nos.  9.208  and  6,803  are  also  unions. 


WIND  INSTRUMENT  PLAYERS. 


409 


ister ,  of  the  organization ;  although,  in  this  case  no  men¬ 
tion  is  made  of  the  usual  word  collegium  or  corpus. 

The  cornicen  or  horn  player  was  another  musician 34  who 
is  found  mentioned  on  the  same  marble  with  a  liticen  at 
Rome.  But  the  music  of  the  horn  blowers  and  that  of  the 
clarion  players  was  so  similar  that  it  may,  in  this  case,  be 
a  confusion  of  the  two  in  one. 

The  flute  players  deserve  a  more  particular  mention. 
Among  the  Romans  they  wore  called  tibicenes,  and  among 
the  Greeks  auletrides.  In  very  remote  antiquity  the  latter 
existed  at  Athens  and  other  cities  of  Attica.  They  were 
poor  girls  of  lowly  origin  who  went  about  playing  their , 
flutes  and  earning  here  and  there  a  little  coin,  sufficient 
to  keep  them  from  suffering.  Some  of  them  were  very 
beautiful;  and  as  this  natural  accomplishment  was  some¬ 
times  more  charming  even  than  their  music,  there  goes  up 
a  charge  against  their  character.26  It  is  now  known  that 
these  flute  players  were  organized  in  a  trade  union  or  some 
kind  of  a  labor  federation.  In  order  to  carry  on  their 
business  they  were  required  to  pay  a  small  tax  to  the  gov¬ 
ernment  as  a  license,  which  tax  was  collected  by  the  vec- 
tigalarii  as  stated  in  our  chapter  on  the  customs  collect¬ 
ors.  This  was  another  union  whose  members  were  re¬ 
quired  by  the  state  to  collect  the  last  denarius ,  even  if 
they  had  to  torture,  imprison  or  sell  the  poor,  impecuni¬ 
ous  creatures  as  slaves.  It  may  therefore  have  happened 
that  a  beautiful  auletrid,  before  surrendering  her  life  as  a 
slave  and  legalized  concubine  of  the  wealthy  Roman  or 
Athenian  who  bought  her  at  the  shambles,  would  some¬ 
times  procure  the  inveterate  tax  money  by  accepting  the 
best  available  offers  which  promised  life  and  liberty. 

At  Rome  a  genuine  flute  players’  union,  collegium  tibi- 
cenum  Romanorum  existed26  during  the  emperors  which 
was  shielded  from  the  repressive  laws  against  organiza¬ 
tion  by  being  a  sacred  commune.  Probably  the  girls 
played  sacred  music  on  occasions.21  That  there  were 
male  members  in  this  commune  is  certain.  The  wording 
of  the  inscription  shows  this  one  name  taking  the  mascu¬ 
line  termination.  There  were  also  at  Athens  and  the  Pi- 

*4  Idem,  No.  4,105. 

*5  Of.  Sangei'’s  History  of  Prostitution,  chap,  iii,  p.  46. 

*6  Relnes,  pp.  184-167. 

*7  **  Qui  sacria  publicis  praesto  sunt.  ”  Orell.,  Inscr.  No.  1,803. 


ORGANIZED  AMUSERS. 


410 

raeus  many  of  the  aulitrides  or  Greek  flutists  who  lived 
under  protection  of  their  gallant  unions.  A  study  of  the 
excellent  work  of  Guhl  and  Koner  28  will  afford  the  reader 
much  additional  knowledge  upon  the  subject  of  ancient 
music. 

The  great  ludi  cer censes  which,  although  in  point  of  his¬ 
tory,  treatment  of  performers  and  other  features,  were 
very  different  from  the  gladiatorial  style  of  amusement, 
so  resemble  these  latter  in  many  other  respects  that  it 
seems  consistent  to  treat  of  them  as  belonging  to  one 
variety.  The  Roman  circus  was  not  the  only  institution 
of  its  kind.  There  was  evidently  a  circus  at  Lyons.  An 
inscription  mentioning  a  union  of  players,  speaks  of  the 
right  of  organization  at  Lyons,  for  all  who  wish.29 

Everything  built  to  entertain  amusement  seekers  among 
the  Romans,  whether  at  Rome,  Pompeii  or  elsewhere,  if 
public,  took  the  amphitheatrical  shape.  There  were 
numerous  race-courses  at  Rome,  some  of  which  were  of 
prodigious  extent.  The  circus  Maximus80  was  enormous. 
“According  to  the  latest  calculations,  in  late  imperial 
times,  it  must  have  contained  480,000  seats.  It  is  about 
21,000  feet  long  by  400  wide.” 31  It  is  very  old,  having 
been  begun  by  Tarquinius  Priscus.  These  figures  are 
sufficient  proof  of  themselves,  that  Rome  once  contained 
an  immense  population.  Large  numbers  of  slaves  were 
necessary  to  supply  the  labor  of  these  enormous  public 
works.  The  many  scenes  of  hippodromes,  chariot-run¬ 
ning,  foot-racing,  of  archery,  mock  manoeuvres,  and  sham 
battles  were  observable  from  a  great  distance.  They 
thrilled  vast  audiences. 

But  the  inner  life  of  the  poor  who  were  to  manage  and 
carry  out  the  innumerable  features  of  those  games  is  a 
subject  which  the  reader  of  history  learns  little.  They 
were  all  of  the  lowly  class  and  eked  out  a  living  under 
many  difficulties  and  humiliations;  and  many  of  those 
who  were  not  slaves  but  existed  in  the  capacity  of  freed- 
men,  took  refuge  from  abuse  and  overtoil  under  the  mea¬ 
gre  privilege  left  them  to  unite  in  mutual  self  aid. 

*  Guhl  and  Koner,  Life  of  the  Greeks  and,  Romans,  Tr.  F.  Hueffer,  (Lon.  Ohatto 
and  Windus.) 

22  Glut.,  431,  1.  Inscr.  Tot.  Orbis  Rom. 

so  Guhl  and  Koner,  Life  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  Tr.  pp.  422-428. 

M  Guhl  and  Koner,  pp.  423-4  note.  See  fig.  431  note. 


CARNAGE  OF  THE  SANDS. 


411 


But  the  celebrated  gladiatorial  amusements  are  more 
generally  known  to  us  at  this  day,  although  the  circus 
performance  has  outlived  them,  being  yet  common  on  a 
much  smaller  scale.  .  There  was  no  mockerv  about  the 
amphitheatre.  The  combats  were  real.  We  have  already 
spoken  of  the  large  traffic  in  lions,  tigers,  leopards  and 
other  wild  animals  for  the  combats.  Not  only  did  the 
Romans  pit  Hon  with  tiger,  panther  with  bear,  lynxes  and 
leopards  with  serpents,  but  they  matched  tigers,  lions 
and  serpents  of  terrible  ferocity  with  men.  When  at  the 
great  games  the  stock  of  fierce  wild  animals  was  killed  off 
they  sent  hunters  in  quest  of  more  Romanelli 33  pre¬ 
serves  an  inscription  which  for  clearness  has  been  re¬ 
garded  by  the  archaeologists  as  an  object  of  much  value. 
The  inscription  commemorates  a  family  (probably  a  com¬ 
munity)  of  hunters  of  Pompeii,  who  procured  noble  game 
from  the  forests,  and  mentions  Popidius  Rufus  as  the 
manager  of  the  familia  gladiatorum. 

We  have  elsewhere  seen  that  there  were  unions  of 
sweepers  of  the  amphitheatres,  collegia  arenariorum.  They 
were  not  required  to  fight  in  the  arena.  They  dragged 
the  dead  gladiators  off  the  sands,  shoveled  up  the  blood, 
new-sprinkled  the  floor  with  sand,  sharpened  the  gladia 
or  swords  as  well  as  the  javelins  and  other  tools,  stood 
ready  to  perform  any  service;  even  perhaps  that  of  cut¬ 
ting  off  the  heads  of  vanquished  gladiators  who  heroically, 
when  hors  de  combat ,  bleeding  and  dying  with  their  gaping 
gashes,  impatient  of  death,  bent  the  head  to  receive  the 
severing  stroke  of  the  broadsword.3* 

Marini  found  two  queer  inscriptions,  graved  on  one 
stone,  of  gladiators  who  “fell  fighting,  steel  in  hand.84 

82  Romanelli,  Viaggio  a  Pompel.  tome  I,  p.  82;  Marini,  Atti,  T,  p.  165.  It  la 
clear  that  there  must  have  been  lions  in  the  forests  of  Mt  Olympus  for  Polyda- 
raus  the  wrestler  (B.  C.  404,  see  Plato,  Bekk.  Lond.  chap.  XII  note)  killed  a  huge 
lion  there.  Lions  are  known  to  have  lived  in  Germany  and  hyenas  in  Eng.  See 
Buckland,  Reliquoe  Diluvfance,  Lond.,  1822  because  their  bones  are  now  being 
found  in  the  Pleistocene  caves. 

33  BulwerLytton’s.Zcwf  Days  of  Pompeii,  where  these  awful  scenes  are  graph¬ 
ically  set  forth. 

Marini,  Atti,  1,  p.  165.  The  modern  ages  are  actively  studying  ont  the 
horrors  of  the  gladiatorial  combats.  We  refer  the  reader  who  may  doubt  as  to 
whether  those  people  fought  under  the  most  intense  humiliations,  to  the  cuts  of 
Guhl  and  Koner,  pp.  562-3,  trans.  .showing  the  distressing  scenes  of  these  flUits 
with  the  wild  animals,  also  to  Carey,  Principles  of  Political  Economy ,  Part  Ill.  p. 
123:  “The  great  mass  having  sunk  to  barbarous  rudeness,  bloody  gladiatorial 
games  and  combats  of  wild  beasts  took  the  place  of  dramatic  representations 
while  the  few  were  becoming  more  refined  and  fastidious.”  To  the  Icoaograpkic 
Cyclopaedia,  Division  IV,  New  York.  1851,  R,  Garrigue.  Tafel  15,  magnificon 


412 


ORGANIZED  AM  USERS. 


Inscription  No.  2,552  of  Orelli’s  Res  Scaenica  is  designated 
by  him  as  representing  gladiatorial  combats  in  the  colis¬ 
eum.  It  is  a  horrible  thought  for  an  age  like  this  to  en¬ 
dure;  yet  there  was  a  time  when  killing  men  for  sport 
was  so  popular  that  crowned  heads  were  turned  from 
meditation  to  convulsions  of  delight  by  the  sight;  and 
ladies  dressed  in  the  costliest  attire  of  fashion  could  sit 
for  hours  bewitched  with  the  whirl,  the  charge,  the  lunge 
of  steel  and  shrieks  of  pain,  the  spurt  of  blood  from  the 
wounds  of  naked  men,  the  roar  of  lions  and  screech  and 
growl  of  tigers,  bears  and  wolves,  the  murderous  hand-to- 
hand  fights  of  the  hoplomachi  with  heavy  swords  and  the 
whole  swirling,  mazy,  gory  labyrinth  of  the  Roman  arena ! 
Surely,  forced  as  we  are  to  admit  that  such  scenes  of  cru¬ 
elty  really  once  existed,  as  it  were,  among  our  forefathers, 
we  feel  almost  constrained  to  admit  that  the  many  thous¬ 
ands  of  years  which  had  flown  before  the  present  era,  had 
produced  little  better  than  savages  to  people  the  world. 
Those  awful  brutalities  were  the  product  of  the  slave  sys¬ 
tem.  They  could  not  have  taken  place  where  men  were 
free. 

The  gladiators  had  several  different  names.  Some  were 
called  gladiators,  some  mirmillions,  some  agitators,  some 
•pugnatores,  some  ergastularii ,  according  to  their  social 
rank  and  the  kind  of  weapons  with  which  they  were  al¬ 
lowed  to  consummate  their  murderous  tasks.  But  slaves 
though  they  were,  they  found  means  to  accomplish  frater¬ 
nal  unions.  That  there  were  unions  of  gladiators  inscriptions 
exist  so  plentifully  to  prove,  that  the  most  skeptical  can  no 
longer  doubt.  There  are  several  inscriptions,  evidently 
signs  of  gladiator  brokers,88  showing  that  there  were  specu¬ 
lators  in  this  species  of  human  flesh.  Being  slaves  and  not 
freedmen,  except  in  cases  where  they  won  freedom  by  kill¬ 
ing  their  adversary,  human  or  wild  beast,  thus  achieving 
their  manumission,  they  could  only  with  difficulty  organize 
for  mutual  help. 

Orelli,  in  Res  Scaenica ,  No.  2,066  reproduces  the  remark¬ 
able  inscription  of  Donati,  found  in  Rome,  which  is  acknow- 

steel  engraving  of  the  arena,  where  are  seen  fighting  men,  women,  elephants, 
tigers,  lions,  pauthers  and  serpents,  for  the  amusements  of  myriads  in  the  seats 
above !  'l  hat  they  fought  naked  see  Idem  Hecht,  Section  IX,  Tafel  7,  Vol.  II. 
Plates,  showing  men  killing  men. 

35  Orell.,  Inscr.  4,197  and  4,247  of  Aria  et  Opificia. 


ORGANIZED  FORTUNE-TELLERS. 


413 


ledged  to  have  served  a  union.  Of  itself  it  is  an  object  of 
surprise ;  aud  has  not  yet  been  studied  enough  to  shed  all 
the  light  that  was  latent  in  its  curious  palaeograph.  There 
are  recorded  in  the  Res  Scaenica  of  Orelli  not  less  than  a 
dozen  genuine  trade  unions  of  the  gladiatorial  art.  This  of 
itself  makes  it  conjectural  whether  there  was  not  some  law 
relative  to  the  organization  of  slaves. 

Fortune-telling  was  so  common  that  there  is  a  law  in  the 
code  of  Theodosius  providing  for  a  union  of  fortune-tellers, 
c orpus  Kiemesiacorum .“  They  had  a  secret  order  whose 
members  worshipped  the  goddess  of  fortune,  called  Dea 
Nemesi.  They  were  something  like  our  clairvoyants;  some 
of  them  like  our  psycologists  but  more  nearly  resembling 
the  aruspices  and  diviners  of  oracles.  Such  was  the  super¬ 
stition  among  all  classes  that  they  were  held  in  high  esteem 
by  rich  and  poor  and  probably  patronized  a  good  deal,  thus 
affording  an  opportunity  to  combine  profit  with  mysterious 
wisdom. 

There  are  some  great  stories  connected  with  superstition. 
Eunus  the  slave  king  of  Enna  in  Sicily  was  a  fortune-teller. 
The  poor  downtrodden  slaves,  crushed  to  the  lowest  condi¬ 
tion  which  left  breath  and  animation  in  their  tortured 
frames,  when  they  heard  of  his  wise  sayings — some  of  which, 
like  those  of  our  weather  prophets,  came  true — and  when 
.they  were  informed  by  him  that  he  was  destined  to  quit 
the  servile  post  of  waiter  in  his  master’s  family  and  assume 
the  royal  robes  of  a  monarch,  they  believed  him;  and  this 
superstitious  credulity  actually  wrought  the  fact.  He  wTas 
fortune-teller,  fire-eater,  prestidigitator  and  stump  speaker; 
and  combined  with  all  this  a  bluff  managerial  talent  and  a 
rollicking  good  nature  and  winsomeness  which  determined 
and  cast  the  die  to  the  greatest  insurrection  known  in  history 
unless  we  except  that  of  Spartacus.  If  he  had  no  organ¬ 
ization  at  the  start  he  soon  effected  one.  He  also  showed 
much  shrewd  resignation  of  his  prerogatives  of  kingship 
when  he  gave  to  the  terrible  Achaeos,  and  the  impetuous 
Cleon  the  command  of  the  armies.  He  showed  a  wisdom 
akin  to  revelation  when  he  decided  not  to  take  arms  per¬ 
sonally  but  to  stay  in  his  palace  and  blow  fire  out  of  nis 
mouth,  dawdle  with  the  trinkets  of  his  throne  and  let  these 

a6  Nemesclaci,  a  dea  Nemesi,  quae  eadem  est  cum  bona  Fcrtana.  CoO 
Theod  lib,  XIV,  Nat.  ad  leg.  2,  tit  VI 1 


414 


ORGANIZED  AM  USERS. 


generals  fight  his  battles  with  a  soldiery  of  slaves  who  be¬ 
lieved  that  every  word  he  uttered  was  dropped  from  the 
Almighty. 

Witchcraft  aud  fortune-telling  have  been  twin  trades 
from  the  earliest  times  and  were  well  worth  organizing  for; 
and  as  they  were  intimately  allied  to  the  mysteries  of  early 
religions  the  membership  had  less  difficulty  in  procuring 
laws  exempting  them  from  suppression.  But  they  carried 
it  to  intrigue  and  machination,  so  that  oftentimes  it  did  not 
restrict  itself  to  simple  amusement.  It  gained  a  strong  foot¬ 
hold  upon  the  solemnity  of  religion  and  exercised  so  power¬ 
ful  a  control  of  men’s  consciences  that  the  hints  and  pre¬ 
sages  of  the  soothsayer  sometime  sdecided  the  fortunes  of 
battle. 

Great  numbers  of  unions  of  mimic  actors  existed  among 
the  Greeks  and  Romans.87  We  have  especially  noticed  that 
part  of  the  ancient  world  inhabited  by  the  Roman  stock  of 
the  Indo-European  race ;  but  this  was  merely  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  making  the  fact  perspicuous  that  the  ancient  work¬ 
ing  people  had  a  labor  movement  and  that  the  freedmen 
were  organized.  In  Greece,  Syria  Phoenicia,  Gaul,  Germany 
and  the  regions  of  the  Danube  are  also  found  inscriptions 
and  other  evidences  that  once  a  great  trade  aud  labor  move¬ 
ment  existed  covering  most  of  the  then  Roman  world.** 

*7  Mommsen,  De  Coli .  et  Sodal  Romanorum,  p.  83,  note  6.  “  Communia  mem 
ornm  multa  inveniuntur/’ 

88  Wallace,  Numbers  of  Mankind,  p.  142,  makes  some  remarks  which,  though 
written  a  century  ago.  are  applicable  to  the  study  which  engages  these  pages: 
lie  says :  “  As  the  riches  and  luxury  of  the  great  men  in  Rome  increased  so  pro¬ 
digiously,  this  must  have  occasioned  a  vast  circulation,  and  a  general  plenty 
of  gold  aud  silver ;  nor  was  it  possible  to  coniine  the  money  to  a  few  hands: 
however,  the  necessaries  of  life  continued  at  a  moderate  price,  and  did  not  rise 
in  their  value  in  proportion  to  the  high  rates  which  were  set  on  the  materials  of 
luxury.”  This  shows  that  yearning,  at  least,  for  the  socialistic  system  largely 
prevailed  among  the  ancient  lowly. 


CHAPTER  XYHL 


TRADE  UNIONS. 

THE  ANCIENT  CLOTHING-CUTTERS. 

How  the  ancients  were  olothed — The  Unions  of  Fullers — Of 
Linen  Weavers,  Wool-carders,  Cloth-combers — Inscriptions 
as  Proof — Later  Laws  of  Theodosius  and  Justinian  Revised 
— Government  Cloth  Mills — What  was  Meant  by  Public 
Works — Who  managed  Manufactures — The  Dyers — Old- 
fashioned  Shoes  of  the  Forefathers — How  made — Origin  of 
the  Crispins — The  Furriers’  Union — Roman  Ladies  and  Fin¬ 
eries  of  Fur — The  great  Ragamuffin  Trade — Their  Innumer* 
able  Unions — Ragpickers  of  Antiquity — Origin  of  the  Cen- 
ciafuole — Organization  of  the  Real  T atterdem aliona — Ori gin 
of  the  Gypsies — Hypothesis. 

It  is  quite  possible  to  establish  the  fact  that  the  clothing 
trades  were  organized.  Woollen  goods  in  those  times  were 
uot  manufactured  in  large  mills  with  costly  machinery. 
Weaving  was  done  on  small  hand  looms,  and  the  fulling  of 
cloth  was  a  trade  by  itself.  Cotton  was  used  for  tents,  thea¬ 
tres  and  also  to  some  extent  for  clothing  at  an  early  date; 
yet  our  limited  data  will  not  permit  us  to  state  that  cotton 
manufacturers  were  organized.  But  the  workers  in  wool 
had  societies,  some  of  which  were  screened  from  the  restric¬ 
tions  imposed  on  many  other  trades,  on  account  of  their  in¬ 
nocent  usefulness.  There  is  a  law  of  the  Theodosian  code 1 
providing  for  the  right  or  privilege  of  mutual  organization 
to  the  fullers,  fullonea.  We  consequently  have  a  fullers’  union 
fullonum  sodalicium  *  commemorated  on  a  marble  slab,  found 

t  Cod.  Tkeod.,  Dt  Excusationibus  Artijicum,  lib.  XIII,  tit.  IV,  lex.  2. 

•  Murator,  Thesaurus  Veterum  Incriptionum,  951,  9.  Found  at  Spoleto  among 
the  Appeninee.  It  is  an  Inscription  in  marble.  Cult  of  the  union,  Minerva. 


41(5 


UNIONS  OF  CLOTHES  MAKERS, 


at  Spoleto ;  another,  picked  up  at  Falaria,  inscribed  with 
lette  \s  so  well  preserved  that  no  hesitation  is  indulged  in 
by  the  critics  in  pronouncing  it  a  genuine  trade  union  of  the 
fullers,  as  the  word  “  collegium ”  appears  three  times  and 
“  sodalicium  ”  twice;*  both  terms  convey  the  meaning  of 
mutual  union  or  organization ;  and  as  both  these  inscriptions 
appear  to  be  of  the  era  of  the  republic,  they  are  probably 
very  old.  If,  however,  the  two  tablets  above  cited  are  not 
sufficient  as  evidence  of  the  union  of  fullers,  we  have  a  gem 
from  Pompeii  in  the  from  of  an  inscription  of  the  fullers  who 
worked  in  some  public  establishment.  These  artisans,  as 
Mommsen  observed  in  his  disquisition  on  labor  unions,  evi¬ 
dently  shielded  themselves  from  the  severity  of  the  law  sup¬ 
pressing  the  colleges,  by  having  recourse  to  a  certain  amount 
of  piety 4  which  they  scarcely  felt  in  their  hearts.  A  society 
of  sacred  fullers  sounds  ridiculous !  *  Yet  this  inscription 
commemorating  a  fraternity,  or  at  any  rate,  a  force  of  work¬ 
men  fulling  cloth  for  the  use  of  the  people,  bears  pious  words 
which  would  incline  one  to  imagine  that  some  of  their  wages 
was  devoted,  like  a  collection  at  church,  towards  defraying 
the  expenses  of  the  holy  temples  instead  of  providing  for 
the  earners’  hungry  babes.  This  inscription  is  one  of  the 
many  contributions  to  ethnological  science  which  the  exhu¬ 
mations  from  Pompeii  have  produced.  Of  course  then  no 
one  can  question  its  greater  antiquity  than  the  earthquake 
of  Vesuvius,  A.  D.  79;  and  it  might  have  existed  many 
hundreds  of  years  anterior  to  that  event. 

The  linen  weavers  during  the  emperors,  enjoyed  the  free 
right  of  organization,  according  to  a  provision  in  the  codex 
Theodosiif  and  we  accordingly  have  an  inscription  quoted 
in  Orelli/of  the  linen  weavers,  lintearii,  found  at  Nemausum, 
by  Muratori.  But  the  stone  is  in  a  bad  condition.  It 
might  have  been  a  private  sign,  in  which  case  it  proves 
nothing  to  our  purpose.* 

The  wool  carders,  lanarii  pectinarii ,  used  to  card  and 

«  Cf.  Orelliue,  Inscriptionum  Latinarwn  Collection  No».  4,066,  4,091,  8,291  all 
of  which  were  fullers. 

*  Mommsen,  De  Collegiis  et  Sodaliciis  Romanorum.  Cap.  V.  passim. 

6  Vide  Orell,  Inscr.  Lat.  Coll „  No.  3,291,  Opera  Publica.  “Eumachl®  flliii  In* 
genui  Sacred,  pub.  Fullones.”  Pompeii 

6  Cod.  Theod.,  lib.  XXX,  6.  8.  16. 

*  O  ell.,  Inscr  Latinar-um  Collectio,  No.  4,216 also  Cod. Theod.,  lib.  X,  20, 16. 

*  For  futher  information  on  linen  weavers,  see  Granler  Hittoirc  des  Classes 
Ouvrfcn,  p.  310;  ■  Lee  principalis  corporations  marchandes  de  1’  empire  6taient 
cel  es  des  tisserands.  linteonet  etc.” 


THE  STATE  EMPLOYED  TRADE  UNIONS.  415 


weave  with  similar  cards  and  hand-looms  as  were  used  by 
the  colonists  of  the  United  States.  In  all  probability  the 
teasel  was  used  in  dressing  and  combing  the  cloth  the  same 
as  now;  since  no  application  of  mechanical  invention  and 
science  has  ever  superseded  the  use  of  the  teasel  in  combing 
cloth,  although  new  experiments  of  great  ingenuity  are  con¬ 
stantly  being  made. 

The  weavers  and  carders  were  also  organized.  Of  this 
we  also  have  proof  in  the  inscriptions.  Gruter  found  at 
Brixia*  a  fragment  of  a  slab  on  which  were  engraved  a  few 
words  signifying  that  the  sodalicium  or  union  had  added 
another  emancipated  slave  to  their  numbers,  either  as  ap¬ 
prentice  or  otherwise.  The  organization  was  one  of  wool 
carders.  The  same  author  records  several  others,  one  of 
them  discovered  in  the  village  of  Rummel  agri  Silvaedu- 
censia.10  At  Rome  there  were  several  others  discovered.11 

Inscription  No.  2,303  of  Orelli  is  placed  by  him  among 
Opera  publiea,  public  works,  which  is  very  strong  evidence 
that  the  state  fanned  out  the  manufacture  of  wollen  goods 
to  the  unions,  who  produced  the  goods  for  the  government 
in  its  own  mills.  Did  the  Roman  state  own  woollen  mills? 
It  would  be  well  for  political  economists  to  consider  this 
important  question  before  proceeding  to  accuse  the  labor 
movement  of  this  day  of  making  demands  which  are  *  un¬ 
precedented  ”  in  the  methods  of  manufacture  and  distribu¬ 
tion  of  the  means  of  human  life  and  comfort.  The  evidences 
which  are  coming  to  light  through  the  labors  of  archaeolog¬ 
ists,  who  dig  up,  interpret  and  record  the  tell-tale  palaeo- 
graphs  of  an  ancient  civilization  are  accumulating  proof 
of  the  conjecture  that  once  in  Rome,  at  Athens  and  elsewnere, 
the  governments  were  owners  of  woollen  factories;  and  that 
they  were  run  for  government  by  trade  unions,  watched, 
curtailed,  hampered  and  restricted  of  course,  by  the  jealous 
optimate  politicians  lest  the  immense  advantages  natural  to 
such  a  method  should  conduce  to  the  liberty  and  social 
emancipation  of  the  proletaries.  The  student  of  sociology 
may  dimly  discern  some  obscure  light  from  great  writers  to 
the  effect  that  not  only  the  woollen  mills  were  counted  as 
public  works  but  also  many  other  establishments  of  a  nature 
to  supply  food,  clothing  and  shelter  to  the  population. 

•  Grattr,  JntortfUmm  1WM  Orbit  Komanorum,  648.  2,  967,  S. 

U  Mm,  067,  8.  u  idem,  648,  4. 


418 


UNIONS  OF  CLOTHES  MAKERS 


When  the  linen  or  wool  was  carded,  spun,  woven  into 
cloth  and  fulled,  it  was  necessary  to  have  it  dyed.  It  is 
however  probable  that  then,  as  now,  the  goods  were  dyed 
in  the  yarn.  This  required  another  trade — that  of  dyers. 

There  was  a  class  of  dyers,  those  who  colored  the  cele¬ 
brated  purple  hues,  who  were  especially  provided  by 
law ; 12  the  blattearii.  They  enjoyed  the  free  privilege  of 
organizing  their  numbers  and  possessed  trade  unions,  be¬ 
ing  exempt  from  the  restrictions  which  so  curtailed  and 
embarassed  some  of  the  unions  of  other  trades. 

Another  class  of  dyers  were  the  murileguli  who  fished 
for  shells  and  purple-fish  that  secreted  an  ink  used  for 
coloring  silk  and  probably  other  materials.  No  inscrip¬ 
tions  have  been  discovered  that  we  are  aware  of  which 
describe  them,  but  frequent  mention  in  the  Roman  law 
in  connection  with  the  franchise  extended  to  some  unions, 
corroborates  the  assurance  that  they  possessed  organiza¬ 
tions.  In  fact  their  fraternity  was  mentioned  and  pro¬ 
vided  for  in  the  codes  both  of  Theodosus  and  of  Jus¬ 
tinian.18  These  workmen  colored  the  exquisite  red  and 
purple  of  the  ancient  red  banner.14 

Thus  we  have  the  cloth  ready  for  the  tailor.  The  an¬ 
cients  wore  a  sort  of  loose  cloak  or  flowing  mantle  called 
sagum.  It  was  usually  of  long  wool  and  colored.  Tailors 
who  made  them  were  called  sagarii 15  and  they  were  or¬ 
ganized  ;  but  as  they  were  a  branch  of  the  tailors*  pro¬ 
fession  there  appear  no  special  inscriptions  of  them  ex¬ 
cept  in  the  lists  of  epitaphs.16  There  was  a  union  of  tail¬ 
ors  provided  for  by  a  law  in  the  code  of  Theodosius,  un¬ 
der  the  designation  given  them,  of  gynaeciarii 17  which  is 
a  warping  of  a  Greek  word  and  a  Greek  custom  into  the 
Roman  tongue.  At  Athens  the  gynaeceum  was  that  por¬ 
tion  of  any  house  where  the  women  lived.  They  also 
worked  there  for  their  masters;  and  by  this  we  know 
they  were  often  slaves.  But  in  Rome  it  served  as  a  man¬ 
ufactory  of  clothing  in  addition  to  being  the  harem  of 
the  lord.  Under  the  emperors  there  was  a  man  to  over¬ 
see  this  work.18  As  the  emperor  was  the  head  of  the 

12  Cod.  Theod.,  Be  Excusationibus  Artificum,  lib.  XIII,  tit.  IV,  leg.  2. 

13  Cod.  Justimani ,  IX.  7.  14  See  chapter  on  the  Ancient  Red  Flag,  infra. 

16  Cod.  Theodosii,  lib.  X,  tit.  5  leg,  12,  alsoX,  20. 

16  Orellug,  Inscriptionum  Latinarum,  Collectio,  Nos.  4,251  and  4,723,  Sepul • 
irdHa.  i"  Cod.  Theodosii,  lib,  X,  leg.  2,  8,  7  and  X.  20,  2. 

is  Cod.  Justimani,  lib.  XI,  7,  8. 


IMPERIAL  WORKSHOPS. 


419 


people  lie  was  considered  the  government  and  his  palace 
like  the  residence  of  the  president  of  the  United  States, 
was  government  property ;  so  that  it  seems  to  be  a  fact 
easily  proven  that  certain  manufacturing  establishments 
were  carried  on  by  the  ancient  governments;  since  it  is 
well  known  that  the  spinners’,  weavers’,  dyers’  and  tail¬ 
ors’  overseers  who  were  called  gynaeciarii ,  had  shops  in 
the  emperors’  palaces  and  conducted  the  manufacture  of 
mantles,  togas  and  other  articles  of  clothing  on  quite  an 
extensive  scale  for  the  household  of  his  majesty,  includ¬ 
ing  family  and  retinue.  These  female  clothiers  worked 
in  the  same  manner  for  others  of  the  great  gentes  or  lordly 
families.  This  prepares  us  for  a  distinct  comprehension 
of  the  desire  of  ancient  labor  to  be  organized.  It  lifted 
the  member  one  step  higher  than  the  slave  and  placed 
him  or  her  in  the  co-operative  supervision  and  care  of 
the  fraternity.  The  Roman  gynaeciarius  was  generally 
a  man  who  had  charge  of  the  workshop. 

On  account  of  a  misapprehension  of  this  word’s  true 
meaning,  lexicographers  define  the  gynaeciarius  as  an 
overseer  of  a  harem  !  This  is  a  cheap  way  of  degrading 
the  character  of  hundreds  and  even  thousands  of  poor 
working  women  who  plied  the  honest  needle  wherewith 
to  eke  out  a  wretched  living.  But  it  is  the  inscriptions — 
a  late  study — which  bring  out  the  original  home-mean¬ 
ing,  otherwise  lost.  Not  only  the  code  of  Theodosius 
but  that  of  Justinian  contain  well  worded  provisions  for 
the  organization  of  tailors  into  trade  unions.  This  asso¬ 
ciation  was  taken  advantage  of  by  the  women  as  well  as 
their  chivalrous  male  companions  in  poverty  and  lowli¬ 
ness  and  they  were  only  too  glad  to  enjoy  the  patronage 
of  their  emperors,  and  work  in  their  houses  and  those  of 
the  grandees,  under  a  foreman,  doubtless  also  a  member 
of  the  union.  The  gens  family  thus  furnished  shop,  tools 
and  stock  and  the  workers  here  performed  the  work. 
But  family  and  state  were  identical  terms. 

We  now  come  to  the  shoemakers.  If  the  reader,  in  ad¬ 
miring  the  pictures  of  the  ancients,  will  carefully  observe 
the  apparel  in  which  their  feet  are  shod  he  will  notice 
that  the  shoe  has  the  form  of  a  sandal ;  and  that  it  is 
laced  to  the  foot  like  a  modern  half-slipper.  That  is  to 
say,  it  is  mostly  sole ;  there  being  very  little  upper-leather, 


420 


UNIONS  OF  CLOTHES  MAKERS 


especially  about  the  instep.  This  was  the  principal  art¬ 
icle  of  foot  clothing  manufactured  by  the  ancients  for 
popular  use.  Italy,  Greece,  Spain,  Phoenicia,  hTorth- 
.  ern  Africa,  are  almost  semi-tropical  countries.  It  is  the 
pinching  cold  of  Central  Europe  that  has  forced  differ¬ 
entiation  in  the  shape  of  shoes  and  boots.  The  Roman 
sandal,  solea,  was  manufactured  in  enormous  quantities 
largely,  no  doubt,  by  slaves.  But  as  we  have  positive 
evidence  of  unions  of  shoemakers,  solearii,  we  know  that 
they  were  also  produced  by  free  labor.  The  archaeologist 
Marini,  found  at  Rome  a  beautiful  tablet19  on  which  is 
engraved  in  unmistakable  terms  the  name  of  the  union 
and  states  that  it  was  a  collegium  saliarium  baxearum. 
This  means  that  the  members  manufactured  one  particu¬ 
lar  kind  of  sandal  or  shoe — the  baxea  which  was  of  a  cer¬ 
tain  Greek  pattern.  In  the  Vatican  is  another  mentioned 
by  various  authors,20  which,  however,  does  not  so  unmis¬ 
takably  represent  a  trade  union.  The  Crispins,  it  is  well- 
known,  were  a  very  powerful  trade  union  of  a  later  date, 
whose  members  carried  with  them  a  bigoted  species  of 
priestcraft.  But  as  their  existence  is  of  so  curious  a 
character  and  their  organization  so  secret,  we  have  failed 
to  find  any  genuine  inscriptions.  Their  identity  however 
has  come  down  to  us  in  history,  and  marks  an  era  in  the 
Christian  religion,  connecting  it  with  labor  and  practically 
verifying  its  precepts  by  its  commingling  of  the  nobility 
with  the  proletariat,  thus  leveling  all  to  one  plane. 

Diocletian  was  the  tyrant  who  persecuted  the  early 
Christians.  Under  his  reign  two  brothers — noblemen  be¬ 
longing  to  a  gens  family — were  converted  to  religion. 
Their  names,  as  the  story  goes,  were  Crispin  and  Crispin- 
ian.  For  a  poor  slave  or  freedman  to  embrace  Christian¬ 
ity  was  not  so  much  of  an  offense  because  he  had  no  rec¬ 
ognition,  no  family;  but  for  a  nobleman  to  forsake  the 
worship  of  his  ancestral  manes  and  tutelary  saints,  abjure 
faith  in  the  miraculous  gods  and  goddesses  who  for  un¬ 
accounted  ages,  by  sea  and  land  had  presided  over  the 
destinies  of  men  and  had  been  believed  in  with  an  iron 
bound  confidence  and  a  terrorizing  authority  that  left  not 
a  shimmering  of  option  wherein  to  plant  an  independent 

19  Marini,  Atti ,  I,  p.  12 

to  See  Orelli,  Insaipliouum  Latinanm  Colltctio,  No.  4, US,  Arts*  St  •pllCRS 


THE  FIRST  CRISPINS. 


thought — such  an  offender  was  thought  to  deserve  the 
punishment  of  death !  These  Crispins,  therefore,  having 
thus  offended  by  embracing  the  new  faith,  were  obliged 
to  fly  to  Gaul,  where,  according  to  vague  tradition,  they 
settled  at  Soissons,  preaching  by  day  and  shoemaking 
evenings,  until  in  A.  D.  287,  they  were  executed  by  order 
of  Maximian.  They  had  first  founded  the  order  of  Cris¬ 
pins  which  exists  to  this  day.  Many  centuries  afterwards, 
1645,  Crispins  were  chosen  as  the  patron  saints  of  a  re- 
ligio-industrial  community  at  Paris — a  secret  order  called 
the  freres  cordonniers — brother  shoemakers.  This  secret 
order  has  had  a  varied  experience.  It  was  suppressed 
several  times  but  grew  again;  and  to-day  the  order  of 
Crispins  exists  in  the  United  States,  and  many  other 
countries  of  the  world,  as  a  regular  and  genuine  trade 
union  of  shoemakers. 

There  was  also  a  union  of  soldiers’  boot  makers,  caligarii , 
spoken  of  by  Lampridius.21  The  archaeologist  Gruter2* 
brought  to  light  an  inscription  which  may  serve  as  proof. 
It  commemorates  the  existence  of  a  family  of  shoemakers 
who  made  such  shoes,  sutores  caligarii ,  but  is  too  brief,  or 
at  least  the  section  of  it  which  we  have  seen  is  too  incom¬ 
plete  for  a  specimen  to  fix  judgment  upon.  Another  stone 
from  Auximum  is  more  elaborate  but  rendered  vague  by 
the  endless  abbreviations  which  the  Latins  seem  to  have 
been  so  fond  of.28 

Mommsen  gives  a  long  account  of  the  Roman  manner 
of  dividing  the  unions  into  deourians,  centurians24  and  other 
numbers,  somewhat  in  the  manner  prescribed  by  king  Niuna, 
more  than  600  years  before  Christ.  This  inscription  alluded 
to  refers  to  the  centurians,  and  the  division  to  which  the 
union  was  allotted.  Of  the  ordinary  shoemakers,  sutores , 
we  do  not  find  any  inscriptions  proving  that  they  possessed 
trade  organizations.  Perhaps  they  were  all  slaves,  as  was 
the  case  with  some  trades.  There  are  hopes,  however,  that 
more  inscriptions  may  yet  be  discovered  to  prove  that  the 
sutores  had  their  organization. 

In  Rome,  as  at  the  present  time,  it  was  fashionable  to 
wear  furs;  and  we  also  know  that  the  furriers  were  Organ- 

si  Lampridius,  Alexander  Severus,  33. 

*2  Gruter,  Inscriptioncs  Totius  Or  bis  Rornanornm ,  649,  1. 

28  OrelL  ,  Inscr.  Lat.  Cull.,  No.  3,868. 

*4  Momm  ,  De  CoU.  et  Sodal.  Rom,.,  Cap.  II,  p.  27-32. 


UNIONS  OF  CLOTHES  MAKERS . 


ized  into  trade  unions.  The  furriers  were  called  pelliones. 
They  were  classed  as  innocent,  and  allowed  the  privilege  of 
combination  by  a  special  clause  in  the  code  of  Theodosius2* 
and  had  numerous  unions  of  the  trade.  Among  other 
branches  of  the  furriers  were  the  fringe  and  border  makers, 
limbolarii ,26  who  trimmed  ladies’  dresses  with  furs  or  costly 
silk  or  laces.  The  limbolarii  or  fringers  were  connected 
with  the  ladies’  bead  dressers  on  the  one  hand  and  textores 
and  textrices ,  male  and  female  weavers  on  the  other.  That 
they  worked  in  the  head  dress  or  hat  business  is  certain; 
but  we  are  in  the  dark  about  the  method  and  personnel  of 
the  hat  manufacture  for  either  sex. 

A  very  remarkable  and  numerous  trade  union  called  cen- 
tonarii,  patch  workers  and  junkmen  or  ragpickers,  crops  out 
everywhere  among  the  inscriptions.  Near  the  ancient  town 
of  Come  in  Curia,  Gruter27  observed  many  queer  inscrip¬ 
tions,  among  which  are  several  which  clearly  indicate  that 
at  this  municipium  of  Rome  the  rag  pickers  were  numer¬ 
ous  enough  to  get  elected  into  the  municipal  offices.  In¬ 
deed  this  is  his  own  comment  upon  the  matter.  There  is 
no  ground  for  doubt  about  their  being  genuine  trade  unions, 
as  the  wording  of  the  stone  distinctly  says:  “  collegium  cen - 
tonariorum.,y  At  Milan,  the  same  great  pioneer  of  the  re¬ 
naissance  dragged  forth  another  of  these  long  forgotten 
witnesses  of  the  ancient  mode  of  living,  to  shed  its  light 
upon  social  science.28  This  led  to  further  investigation,  and 
Fabretti22  from  the  same  field  brought  out  two  other  tab¬ 
lets  of  centonarii  bearing  equally  good  testimony.  The 
centurian  legion  is  mentioned  upon  one  of  them,  and  by  this 
we  are  apprised  of  the  fact  that  the  law  dividing  the  unions 
into  tens,  hundreds,  etc.,  held  good  as  far  away  as  Milan 
in  the  extreme  north  of  Italy. 

Another,  found  at  the  ancient  Mevaniola,  is  quoted  by 
Orelli.80  It  is  a  slab  of  stone  on  which  is  inscribed  the  name 
of  the  president  of  the  association.  It  is  quite  evident  that 
these  institutions  had  something  to  do  with  manufacture  of 
r^ugh  articles  of  clothing  if  not  also  of  any  and  everything 
they  could  pick  up  the  makings  for.  If  among  all  their  coE 

M  Code  Theod.,  lib.  XIII,  tit.  Iv,  leg.  2,  De  Excut a tUmibtis  Artificum. 

Orell.,  Jnscr.,  No.  4,213. 

87  Gruter,  Inter.  Totixu  Orbit  Romanonm,  Nos.  471.  5,  358.  6  and  others 

»  Gruter,  Inter.  Totius  Orbit  Rom..  477,  1. 

**  Fabrett .ExplicaLio,  p.  73,  72. 

*•  Orell.,  inter..  No.  5,122,  Collegium  centonarirum  Municipii  Mevaniolas. 


RAGPICKERS  AND  PIECE- PA TCHERS  423  . 


lections  of  rags  picked  up  in  the  streets  or  obtained  by  beg¬ 
gary  or  otherwise  in  their  wanderiugs  by  day,  they  found 
in  their  culling  and  sorting,  material  of  mixed  colors  and 
qualities  sufficient  to  make  a  coat,  no  matter  how  versicol¬ 
ored  and  bizarre  it  looked  when  finished,  they  set  about 
cutting,  patching  and  putting  together  the  pieces,  and  of 
them  creating  a  garment  readily  disposed  of  among  the 
poor  slaves  and  outcasts  whose  wretched  lot  it  was  often  to 
work  in  sun  and  storm,  heat  and  cold,  without  clothing,  as 
naked  as  the  gladiators  who  fought  on  the  sands  of  the  am¬ 
phitheatres. 

The  immense  number  of  inscriptions  bearing  record  of 
these  facts,  affords  proof  of  the  formidable  misery  which 
poor  despised  humanity  were  obliged  to  suffer  in  ancient 
days.  In  proof  of  the  position  above  stated,  we  have  from 
Regium  in  Cisalpine  Gaul  a  splendid  stone  containing 
over  100  words  showing  that  the  membership  was  allied  to 
manufacturers,  but  of  what  sort  is  not  given;  that  they  had 
a  temple  of  some  kind  of  their  own ;  and  that  they  took  an 
active  part  in  public  affairs  by  force  of  their  organized  num¬ 
bers.*1 

We  are  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  whoever  investigates 
the  subject  of  the  ancient  ragpickers  from  the  numerous 
and  unmistakable  data  already  at  command,  will  arrive  at 
our  conclusion  that  they  were  a  sort  of  social  jack-at-all- 
trades,  undertaking  in  poverty,  with  limited  means,  and  un¬ 
der  many  checks  of  social  humiliation  and  contempt,  any  job 
that  fell  in  their  way  by  which  they  could  make  a  living. 
Muratori  exhibits  in  his  enormous  folio  collection  Nos.  563 
2  and  564  1,  of  his  Thesaurus ,82  two  others,  found  at  the 
town  of  Sentinum,  a  place  in  ancient  Umbria,  which,  on  the 
whole,  adds  little  to  the  points  already  given. 

In  the  Neapolitan  museum  is,  or  was  a  collection  of  bronze 
butuiics,  statuettes,  plaques  and  tablets,  all  conveying 
thoughts  valuable  to  the  study  of  ethnology — the  Heraclian 
or  Herculanean  museum.  Stored  there  is  another  interest¬ 
ing  tablet  of  these  centonarii  or  ragpickers.  It  was  found 
by  Fabretti,  directly  or  indirectly,  at  Patavium.83  Accord¬ 
ing  to  Heineck  it  is  very  old.*4  Another  from  the  ager  Co- 

81  Orel].,  No.  4,183 ;  Grater,  1,101, 1  and  Murator,  563,  1, 

*2  Vide  Orell.,  4,134:  “Similia  decreta,  neo  minus  verbosa,  adulationlsque 
plena  ’’ 

33  Fabretti.  Explicatio,  p.  485,  160.  S4  Heinec,  Antiqu,  p.  236. 


494 


CLOTHES  MAKERS. 


mentis,  classed  by  Orelli,  among  the  societies  of  artisans  is 
equally  suggestive.”  It  is  ascribed  to  Muratori,  and  is  from 
Torcellum.  Mommsen’s  great  collection 86  contains  another 
stcne  bearing  an  inscription  of  an  iEsernian  rag  pickers’  or¬ 
ganization  and  Orelli  gives  a  very  fine  specimen  from 
Brixia,  which  he  arranges  with  his  collegia,  corpora  et  so- 
dalicia One  that  Orelli  mixed  up  with  his  DU  Immor- 
tales  seems  to  commemorate  one  of  those  unions,  combining 
several  kinds  of  labor  under  one  set  of  rules.*8  When  the 
monument  was  lettered  the  union  had  already  existed  151 
years.  It  is  at  Milan. 

These  things  show  how  dear  the  union  was  to  freedmen. 
We  have  already  cited  twelve  of  the  evidences  of  a  power¬ 
ful  organization  of  freedmen  on  Roman  soil.  There  are 
over  40  more  good  specimens  in  the  museums  and  other 
collections,  and  their  record  is  made  good  for  all  time  in  the 
voluminous  catalogues  of  Archaeologists.  The  great  num¬ 
ber  of  inscriptions  of  the  centonarii,  or  rag  and  old  junk 
gatherers,  in  comparison  with  most  other  organized  trades 
may  be  accounted  for  if  we  reflect  that  very  many  of  the 
ancient  lowly  obtained  their  manumission  late  in  life,  after 
they  had  been  worn  out  in  toil,  whose  products  had  gone 
to  their  masters. 

Manumissions  were  easily  obtained  at  an  advanced  age 
because  the  owner  of  a  man  would  be  glad  to  free  himself 
from  the  expense  of  maintaining  him  after  he  became  old, 
decrepit  and  useless.  Doubtless  the  owner  often  killed  his 
ultra-aged  slaves  rather  than  accord  them  the  boon  called 
liberty  to  die  in  possession  of.  But  we  may  be  sure  that 
such  was  ever  the  longing  for  freedom  when  offered  the 
slave  under  whatsoever  motive  that  he  seldom  refused  to 
accept  the  gift,  though  its  acceptance  entailed  c}\  the  anxi¬ 
eties  and  dangers  of  the  precarious  competitive  struggle  tor 
existence.  Assuming  at  an  advanced  age  the  responsibili¬ 
ties  of  life,  he  drifted  into  any  labor,  no  matter  how  grovel* 
ling,  and  became  the  junk-man,  rag-picker  and  patch-piecer; 
and  with  the  mutual  aid  of  his  union  succeeded  in  living 
happier  in  responsible  independence  than  he  was  before  in 
his  irresponsible  thraldom. 

A  second  reason  for  their  large  numbers  may  be,  that 

m  Orell.,  Inter.,  No.  4070:  Mur.  Tkceuaur,  518,  S.  See  also  Orell.,  No.  4071. 

«  Momm.,  Inter.,  No.  5,060.  Orell.,  Inter „  No.  7,201. 

»*  Orell.,  Inter.,  No.  1702. 


ANCIENT  GYPSIES. 


425 


many  times  no  work  could  be  found;  consequently  to  ob¬ 
tain  enough  to  live  upon  they  took  to  picking  what  others 
threw  away  and  found  that  by  scouring  the  streets  and 
alleys  they  could  bring  to  their  rag  and  junk  markets  suffi¬ 
cient  to  relieve  the  pinch  of  hunger,  and  with  the  otherwise 
unusable  stuff,  make  fires  to  cook  their  food  and  warm 
themselves  in  winter. 

The  fact  that  these  centonarii  are  found  to  have  existed 
not  only  in  Europe  but  throughout  Asia,  is  a  matter  deeply 
suggestive  to  the  student  of  ethnology.  That  they  had  al¬ 
ready  had  their  bands,  and  their  bodies  or  corpores  at  the 
dawn  of  manumission  from  this  primeval  state  of  slavery 
there  seems  little  doubt.  The  inscription  that  we  cite  from 
Orelli’s  catalogue**  shows  by  its  own  words — the  identical 
ones  engraved  in  antiquity  upon  a  piece  of  stone — that  the 
union  had  existed  de  facto  already  151  years.  Further 
light  is  suggestively  shed  here,  to  the  effect  that  the  union 
had  been  able,  traditionally  or  otherwise,  to  count  the  years 
of  its  age  with  precision. 

These  seemingly  phenomenal  things  are  cleared  up  when 
we  come  to  discover  that  when  the  great  wave  of  political 
antagonism  to  the  growth  and  influence  of  organized  labor 
struck  backward  and  overwhelmed  the  unions  which,  as  we 
have  clearly  shown  by  the  inscription  from  the  ruins  of 
Pompeii,  were  able  in  some  municipalities  to  elect  their  own 
superintendents  of  public  works,  a  few  were  excepted  with 
the  proviso  that  they  should  keep  themselves  piously  sub¬ 
ject  to  the  rules  of  the  ancient  religion,  should  fear  and 
honor  the  lares  of  the  gentile  immortals  and  preserve  their 
identity  and  their  habitat  by  an  inscription  or  register  of 
each  union  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  law.  Provided 
with  this  inscription  whereon  was  registered  their  habitat, 
the  name  of  the  deity  they  had  chosen  as  their  tutelary 
guardian,  and  the  business  which  they  professed  as  a  means 
of  existence,  the  law  accorded  them  the  right  to  organize, 
jus  coeundi.  But  these  regulations  they  must  strictly  ob¬ 
serve  ;  because  they  made  it  very  convenient  for  the  police 
whose  duty  it  was  to  watch  over  them  and  report  their  be¬ 
havior  to  senate  and  tribunes  of  the  people. 

Under  the  more  ancient  jus  coeundi  or  right  of  combina- 

»  Orell.,  Truer.,  No.  1702,  note  2  of  explanation:  “  Collegii  supra  scriptl  anni 
181,  ex  quo  collegium  lsthoc  constitatum  fuerat." 


426 


UNIONS  OF  CLOTHES  MAKERS. 


tion  into  unions  of  trades  and  professions,  it  certainly,  as 
proved  by  many  inscriptions  of  the  period  of  the  emperors 
of  Rome,  could  not  have  been  obligatory  that  the  unions 
should  chisel  out  these  lithoglyphs,  so  precious  to  us  now. 
So  when  the  law  came,  some  of  them  searched  back  for 
their  chronology  and  pedigree  and  bad  them  inserted  with 
the  rest  of  the  inscription.  We  know  from  abundant  evi¬ 
dence  that  the  oldest  societies  stood  the  best  chance  of  es¬ 
caping  suppression.  They  were  especially  exempted  by 
law.  This  exemption  was  based  upon  the  respect  for  the 
laws  and  traditions  of  Nutria,  Solon  and  Tullius.  The  new 
societies,  however,  were  looked  upon  with  distrust ;  and  it 
logically  follows  that  if  a  collegium,  corpus  or  sodalicium 
could  prove  its  age  by  tracing  its  record  back  to  a  time  an¬ 
terior  to  the  agrarian  or  servile  troubles,  it  would  have  an 
almost  certain  chance  of  remaining  unmolested. 

We  have  enlarged  upon  this  curious  subject  of  the  rag 
pickers  with  a  view  of  preparing  the  mind  of  the  reader 
with  facts  in  regard  to  our  theory — which  we  will  admit  to 
be  original  and  unique — upon  the  origin  of  gypsies. 

It  is  admitted  that  history  has  failed  to  record  the  origin, 
life  and  migrations  of  the  gypsies.  Of  course  everybody 
agrees  both  that  they  are  a  caste  and  that  they  are,  so  to 
speak,  the  pariah  dogs  of  these  later  days ;  but  everybody, 
upon  reflection,  also  admits  that  they  always  were  and  still 
are  organized.  The  fact  is,  their  organization  has  always 
been  exclusive  and  severe.  Another  fact  always  was  and 
is,  namely,  that  their  language  is  Latin  although  mixed  with 
Sanscrit  and  Greek;  and  this  is  the  most  incontrovertible 
stronghold  to  our  suggestion  that  gypies  are  the  still  linger¬ 
ing,  self-constituted,  tribal  relics  of  the  archaic  children  of 
the  great  gens  families  of  the  Aryan  race,  both  Asiatic  and 
Indo-European. 

We  suggest  that  being  outcasts  of  the  domua  or  paternal 
home  through  the  law  of  primogeniture,  they  served  for 
unknown  ages  as  slaves  on  the  paternal  estate;  and  at  the 
dawn  of  the  period  of  manumissions  were  among  the  first 
to  form  self-supporting,  or  mutually  protective  unions  out 
of  which  the  least  qualified,  most  cunning  and  romantic 
never  developed,  but  continued  to  pick  up  a  living  by  petty 
theft,  rag,  junk  and  slop-gathering,  horse-jockeying  and 
piece-patching,  warping  their  tongues  to  fit  localities,  and 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  GYPSIES. 


427 


their  ingenuity  to  all  the  cunning  quibbles  which  character¬ 
ize  the  competitive  system.  These  vve  conjecture  were  the 
centonarii  or  rag  pickers,  whose  compulsory  inscriptions  we 
study  with  wondering  surprise,  They  are  simply  the  fruit 
of  the  cruel  condition  of  ancient  society  ;  and  the  unique 
monument  their  name  and  shame  have  built  must  arrest  the 
gaze  of  man,  imparting  to  him  a  mournful  lesson  as  he  toils 
onward  to  the  revolution. 


CHAPTER  XIX 


TRADE  UNIONS. 

THE  PAGAN  AND  CHRISTIAN  IMAGE-MAKERS. 

Organizations  op  People  who  worked  tor  the  Gods — Big  and  litue 
God-Smiths — Their  Unions  object  to  the  New  Religion  of 
Christianity  because  this,  originally  Repudiating  Idolatry, 
Ruined  their  Business — Compromise  which  Originated  the 
Idolatry  in  the  Church  of  to-day — The  Cabatores — Unions 
of  Ivory  Workers — Of  Bisellarii  or  Deity-Sedan-Makers — Of 
Image-makers  in  Plaster — The  Unguentani  or  Unions  of  Per- 
fumemakers — Holy  Ointments  and  the  Unions  that  manu¬ 
factured  them — Etruscan  Trinketmakers — Bookbinders — 
No  Proof  yet  found  of  their  Organization. 

Directly  connected  with  and  a  component  part  of  the 
ancient  state,  particularly  that  of  the  Indo-Europeans, 
was  the  great  subject  of  the  gods,  deorurn  immortalium. 
This  with  them  was  no  wild  fancy  but  an  institution  so 
closely  interwoven  in  all  the  affairs  of  public  and  private 
life  that  no  person  of  patrician  birth  who  could  lay  claim 
to  a  family  1  could  possibly,  without  heresy  often  punish¬ 
able  with  death,  disregard  or  question.  The  worship  of 
the  manes  at  the  domestic  altar,  and  of  th epe?iates,  the 
mysterious  home  of  the  lares  and  all  the  holy  immortals 
was  compulsory.  All  paganism  was  excessively,  tyranni¬ 
cally,  inexorably,  cruelly,  religious.  It  ignored  the  whole 
proletarian  class;  and  most  logically,  according  to  its 
tenets;  for  they,  possessing  no  family,  no  property,  no 
paternity,  could  have  no  tutelary  saint  except  by  proxy 
and  in  an  eleemosynary  way,  used  by  them  superficially 

1  The  proletaries  or  working  people  had  no  recognized  family.  To  be  bons 
into  an  ancient  tarnily  was  to  belong  to  a  great  and  noble  pent. 


AN  IND  USTR  T  IN  HOL  T  FURNITURE,  429 


to  flatter  conscience,4  and  in  all  cases  borrowed  by  them 
from  the  grandees,  who  sometimes  permitted  the  loan  of 
a  family  god®  to  act  the  sham  of  tutelary  protector,  and 
this  sometimes  out  of  mere  contemptuous  pity.  But  this 
archaic,  aristocratic  worship  was  in  practice  mechanical. 
Its  temples,  the  work  of  the  proletaries,  were  massive, 
often  magnificent  structures.  Idols  were  numerous,  some 
of  them  specimens  of  the  finest  sculptures  the  world  ever 
produced.  Its  altars  were  solemn,  massive  and  awful ; 
its  sepulchres,  sarcophagi  and  mausoleums,  striking  in 
the  solemnity  of  their  incidents  and  surroundings;  its 
little  images  and  deities  were  visitants  of  every  respecta¬ 
ble  household ;  its  sacerdotal  and  sacrificial  paraphernalia 
numerous  and  indispensable  and  the  oracles  and  shrines 
of  the  aruspex  and  soothsayer  had  each  to  be  adorned 
with  furniture  which  best  convenience d  the  cunning,  flat¬ 
tery,  superstition  and  makeshift  of  priestcraft. 

All  these  things  required  tools  to  make  them  and  were 
the  product  of  skill  and  industry  of  the  proletaries.  Great 
numbers  of  these  emblems  of  Pagan  piety  are  preserved 
in  the  collections ;  and  by  them  we  know  how  to  appreci¬ 
ate  the  methods  of  mechanics  who  produced  them. 

The  cabatores  had  a  union  that  made  images  of  the 
greater  gods.  By  this  is  probably  to  be  understood,  the 
most  powerful  immortals,  Jupiter,  Ceres,  Vulcan  and  the 
like.  They  had  their  shops  in  Borne  and  Athens.  If 
they  were  numerous  we  are  without  evidence  of  the  fact ; 
although  their  skill  covered  a  considerable  range.  The 
cabator  and  the  imaginifex  made  images  of  many  kinds 
but  the  manner  of  their  operations  is  obscure.  We  know 
more  of  their  extent.  The  business  of  the  former  was  to 
make  the  less  elegant  statues,  reliefs,  and  perhaps  pic¬ 
tures  of  the  great  deities;  while  the  latter  busied  himself 
with  the  manufacture  of  the  household  and  toy  gods  for 
which  there  was  always  a  steady  demand.  In  this  man¬ 
ufacture  of  deities  there  was  from  the  most  ancient  epoch 
of  which  we  have  data,  enough  demand  to  keep  large 

•  Fustel,  CM  Antique,  livre  n,  passim, 

•Mommsen,  Di  Collegiis  et  Sodaliciis  Romanorwn,  p.  80:  “ Leglbus  collegii 
Dianes  et  Antinoi  et  collegii  iEsculapii  et  Hygi»  ”  Note  13,  Idem,  p.  78.  “In 
familia  Augustali  multa  collegia  opfioum  fuisse.”  Idem,  p.  10,  D*  Cultu  Minerva 
“  Nautes  quidem  accepit  simulacrum,  .  .  .  Nautiorum  lamilia  sacra  Minervw 
retinebat.” 


430 


IMAGE -MAKERS. 


numbers  of  mechanics  employed.  It  grew  with  the  num¬ 
bers  of  the  human  race,  and  increased  as  human  taste  for 
luxury  increased.  Belief  did  not  perceptibly  change. 
Socrates,  Plato,  Aristotle,  even  Anaxagoras  and  Diogenes 
worshiped  the  immortal  gods  whose  emblems,  statuettes, 
and  profiles  adorned  not  only  the  temples  but  the  resi¬ 
dences  of  all  respectable  citizens.  Such  images,  liable  to 
accident  and  decay,  had  to  be  replenished  or  repaired,  and 
the  labor  required  to  do  this  gave  the  incentive  of  organ¬ 
ization. 

We  shall  show  in  another  chapter,  that  on  the  intro¬ 
duction  of  the  Christian  faith  at  Rome  in  after  years,  one 
of  the  objections  most  vigorously  raised  against  the  new 
doctrine  was,  not  that  it  would  interfere  with  them  in 
point  of  conscience,  but  that  it  would  interfere  adversely 
to  their  means  of  earning  bread !  It  threatened  to  sap  the 
fountain  of  economic  existence.  The  early  Christians 
wanted  no  idols.  The  image-makers  who  wrought  holy 
emblems  out  of  wood,  brass,  gold,  pearl  and  sometimes 
of  amber  and  the  precious  gems,  gained  a  living  by  their 
trade ;  and  consequently,  Christianity,  however  it  might 
otherwise  please  their  sense  of  mutual  love,  of  equality, 
fraternity  and  freedom,  yet  so  long  as  it  threatened  their 
means  of  livelihood  in  the  slightest  degree  they  opposed 
it  with  every  effort  within  their  reach;  whereupon  a  share 
of  the  Pagan  idolatry  was  bargained  for,  sufficient  to  re¬ 
store  the  manufacture  of  images  and  idols.  Then  working 
people,  always  prone  to  accept,  threw  away  their  objec¬ 
tions  and  embraced  the  new  religion  in  such  numbers 
and  with  such  zeal  that  the  old  religion  began  to  dissolve, 
and  in  course  of  a  few  centuries  crumbled  to  the  dust, 
while  the  workman’s  craft  of  image-making  continues  to 
this  day. 

Of  the  most  celebrated  idol  manufacturers,  Phidias, 
perhaps  stands  foremost.  Like  all  proletaries  his  fam¬ 
ily  is  unknown.  No  blooded  historian  could  taint  the 
noble  prestige  with  a  line  enlightening  mankind  upon  his 
pedigree ;  and  writers  of  his  own  class,  there  were  none. 
His  superlative  genius,  however,  wrote  his  history  in  the 
exquisite  images  of  Athena,  in  the  great  works  on  the 
Propylsea  of  the  acropolis  and  the  Parthenon,  wrought 
by  his  combined  imagination  and  chisel.  Ivory  and  gold 


GENIUS  IN  SHRINE  MANUFACTURE. 


431 


entered  into  this  last  chryselephantine  colossus;  and  his 
adornment  of  Olympia  with  the  statue  of  Jupiter  as  a  vir¬ 
gin  goddess  signalized  his  age  by  an  exhibit  of  the  me¬ 
chanical  in  the  most  exquisite  and  costly  details.  Pericles 
the  renowned  optimate  and  politician,  stood  in  astonish¬ 
ment  and  admiration  before  this  workingman’s  genius  and 
originality. 

Myron,  the  cotemporary  and  celebrated  rival  of  Phidias, 
could  sculpture  a  quoit-player,  a  cow  or  a  god  with  equal 
perfection.  His  Hercules,  his  Jupiter  and  his  Minerva 
were  so  perfect  that  Roman  warriors  in  capturing  them 
were  captured  by  them.  When,  afterwards,  Lysippus, 
Praxiteles,  Scopas  and  a  great  many  others  adorned  this 
art  with  perfection  it  never  had  before  or  since,  it  became 
a  trade  at  which  many  thousands  earned  a  living, 

Great  schools  of  image-making  flourished  in  Greece  and 
Rome  from  times  long  anterior  to  Phidias.  The  Etrus¬ 
cans  had  schools  of  idol  manufacture  conducted,  as  in 
Greece,  by  the  proletaries  or  working  people.  Once 
when  the  Romans  beat  them  in  battle  and  at  the  siege 
took  Yolsinii  nearly  300  years  before  Christ,  about  2,000 
holy  images  and  statues  were  a  part  of  the  trophies  of  vic¬ 
tory.  The  Etruscans  were  hard  working,  faithful  people 
who  had  trade  unions  in  great  numbers.  Some  of  these 
were  image-makers ;  and  they  well  knew  how  to  live  and 
profit  upon  the  superstitions  which  thus  attached  to  the 
Pagan  faith. 

While  Rome  produced  few  image-makers  of  brilliancy 
she  patronized  enormously  the  manufacture  of  all  sorts 
of  holy  trinkets.  The  household  from  the  earliest  times 
was  the  true  patron,  and  ladies  bought  many  little  imita¬ 
tions  of  gods  and  goddesses  together  with  an  endless 
variety  of  sacerdotal  paraphernalia,  such  as  suited  their 
fancy  as  to  merit  and  price. 

Orelli  gives  us  an  inscription  of  a  genuine  union  of  the 
bisellarii ,  who  manufactured  the  great  sacerdotal  seat  or 
chair;  a  splendidly  finished  and  richly  upholstered  t&te 
k  tete  for  the  gods.4  There  were  also  signs  either  of 
unions  or  private  business  of  persons  working  ivory,  ebu- 


*  Inscriptionum,  Latinarum  Collectio,  No.  4,137,  note  1,  also  Gruter,  Inscrip - 
tionnm  Totius  Orbit  Romanorum,  12,  8,  and  Muratori,  Thesaurus  Veter um  Inscrith 
tirmum,  544,  1.  r 


432 


IMAGE- MAKERS. 


rarii.  The  inscriptions  are  given  by  Orelli.®  But  we  have 
more  positive  evidence  of  a  trade  union  of  ivory  workers 
in  a  direct  mention  of  them  as  such  in  the  Justinian  code 
which  provided  for  them  the  right  to  organize  and  labor 
in  the  holy  cause.® 

The  evidences  indicate  that  the  tectoriolae  or  little  plaster 
images  of  which  Cicero 7  and  others  have  made  mention, 
were  the  work  of  the  albarii .®  An  inscription  found  at 
Home  and  published  by  Grater,®  appears  to  signify  by  its 
reading  that  the  business  was  managed  by  one  C.  Ateius 
Philadelphus  but  gives  no  clue  to  warrant  that  he  was 
managing  officer  of  a  trade  union  of  the  plasterers’  craft. 

Besides  the  wonderful  chryselphantine  ivory  workers 
belonging  to  the  great  school  of  Phidias,  already  men¬ 
tioned,  there  were  the  eburarii ,  who,  as  we  have  already 
stated,  were  fortified  by  a  law  in  the  code  of  Justinian, 
and  were  excepted  in  the  late  statutes  on  trade  unions.1® 
These  craftsmen  made  little  statuettes,  symbols,  ivory 
chains,  variously  shaped  charms  and  talismans  propitiatory 
of  the  gods.  They  for  this  purpose  carried  on  a  consid¬ 
erable  trade  with  the  Africans  and  Phoenicians  whereby 
to  obtain  pure  and  delicate  ivory.  Indeed,  the  supersti¬ 
tion  inculcated  by  the  ancient  religion  led  to  a  veritable 
industry  which  through  many  a  long  century  furnished 
bread  to  these  mechanics  and  their  families. 

Orelli,11  gives  an  inscription  of  an  association  or  genu¬ 
ine  trade  union  of  the  gods’  bed  makers,  or  pulvinarii .n 
They  were  organized  under  the  society  name  of  sodalicium 
which  Cicero  characterized  as  low  and  mean;  but  we  pre¬ 
sume  that  as  in  this  case  their  calling  was  to  manufacture 
the  elegantly  upholstered  couches  and  silk  embroidered 
sleeping  furniture  of  the  mighty  immortals,  the  piety  and 
solemnity  which  enveloped  their  workshops  rescued  them 
from  the  rigors  of  the  conspiracy  laws  which  Cicero  and 

•  Orell. ,  idem.  Nos.  4,180  and  4, SOS. 

6  Cod.,  Justiniani,  x,  64, 1. 

7  Cic.,  Fam.y  9,  22,  3. 

»  Tertulian,  De  Idololatria,  cap.  viil.  This  author,  however,  admits  that  be¬ 
sides  images  placed  In  the  walls,  the  albarii  did  several  other  kinds  of  plaster 
work. 

9  Grnter,  Inter.  Tot.  Orb.,  642, 11. 

V  Orell.,  Nos.  4.180,  4,302. 

11  Inscriptionum  Latinarum  Collectio,  No.  4,061. 

'2  We  say  “  genuine  ”  incases  where  we  find  full  approval  as  to  their  gen- 
caneness.  Orelli,  Fabretti,  Muratorius,  etc,,  are  high  authority. 


ROME'S  VOLUPTUOUS  HOUSE  OF  LORDS .  438 


Caesar  instituted  for  their  extinction.  Another  inscrip¬ 
tion  was  registered  by  Oderic,  of  these  couch  makers.18 
It  says  that  one  Julius  Epaphra  was  a  fruit  seller,  form¬ 
erly  pulvinarius  who  worked  at  the  couch  makers’  trade 
furnishing  them  for  the  great  circus;  and  Orelli  cites 
Suetonius  to  show  that  such  seats  or  couches  were  com¬ 
mon  at  the  games  although  their  usurpation  by  the  gran¬ 
dees  did  not  please.14 

We  close  our  section  on  the  image-makers  with  the  un - 
guentarii  or  perfumers.  The  reader  by  this  time  begins 
to  see  that  in  reality  all  these  fine  things  “  fit  for  the 
gods,”  which  were  manufactured  by  the  unions  in  such 
quantities,  were  appropriated  and  used  by  the  rich  who 
in  thus  usurping  or  assuming  what  was  destined  for  im¬ 
mortals,  substituted  themselves  therefor;  and  in  that  way 
threw  a  halo  of  glory  around  themselves  and  their  great, 
inapproachable  gem  families.  The  whole  of  it  was  a  sort 
of  self-deification,  using  political  priestcraft  to  puff  their 
vanity,  inflame  their  egoism,  and  widen  the  chasm  which 
forbiddingly  yawned  between  them  and  the  proletarian 
classes. 

These  fine  things,  so  pleasing  to  the  sense  of  feeling 
and  vision  were  not  enough.  They  also  required  some¬ 
thing  to  gratify  the  olfactory  sense;  and  perfumes  of  the 
richest  kind  were  manufactured  for  them.  There  were 
unions  in  considerable  numbers  who  did  this  work.  At 
Capua  before  and  during  the  servile  war  of  Spartacus, 
there  were  perfumery  factories  which  were  celebrated 
all  over  Italy.  The  perfumers  can  scarcely  be  called 
image-makers,  but  their  art  completed  the  category  of 
delicacies  and  amplified  the  means  of  satisfying  the  vo¬ 
luptuous  cravings  of  the  enormously  wealthy.  Their  per¬ 
fumes  were  used  in  the  temples,  and  at  the  sacrifices. 
They  were  esteemed  at  feasts  and  were  used  in  dress. 
At  the  great  circus,  and  afterwards  the  coliseum,  the  re¬ 
served  seats  of  the  grandees  were  known  by  their  aroma. 

The  perfumers  were  not  only  workers  but  also  mer¬ 
chants;  and  necessarily,  because  they  had  to  carry  on  a 
considerable  traffic  with  the  east  and  south  to  obtain 

18  Oderic,  Inscriptiones,  p.  74. 

14  “  Spectare  com  circensea  ex  pulvinari  non  placet  nobis.”  Snetonloa, 
Claudius,  4. 


IMAGE-MAKERS. 


gums,  spices,  nuts,  seeds  and  other  raw  material  for  their 
products.  The  perfumers  or  unguentarii  also  had  similar 
unions  in  Athens  and  Corinth  where  they  carried  on 
a  considerable  business.  There  are  found  quite  a  num¬ 
ber  of  inscriptions  of  different  kinds  of  these  workmen 
and  their  societies.  One  archaeologist  cites  an  inscription 
found  in  Rome,  upon  which  there  has  been  some  com¬ 
ment  made,  arising  from  a  disagreement  about  its  exact 
meaning.16  Publicius  Nicanor,  was  a  perfumer  on  the 
Via  Sacra,  and  one  Maximus  Accensus,  was  one  of  the 
members  of  the  union  whose  duty  was  to  do  up  the 
goods.  Most  probably  it  was  a  union  of  perfumers  chart¬ 
ered  under  the  names  of  two  foremen,  or  one  foreman 
and  one  director  as  was  customary  in  order  to  comply 
with  the  law.  Marini1*  cites  another  inscription  showing 
that  these  prominent  officers  were  females,  or  at  least  one 
of  them.  The  slab  was  found  in  Naples.  Orelli 11  has  an 
inscription  found  by  Gruter  at  Venusia  in  Lucania,  which 
celebrates  the  setting  free  of  a  bondsman  and  family ,  by 
the  father,  out  of  the  money  obtained  as  proceeds  of  the 
perfumery  business.  His  name  was  Philargyrus,  a  per¬ 
fumer.  This  was  probably  a  private  business  of  the  Au¬ 
gustine  period.  The  marble  is  broken  here,  leaving  us 
with  this  conjecture. 

All  the  image-makers  and  perfumers’  trades  were 
countenanced  and  provided  for  by  King  Numa  who  be¬ 
lieved  that  religion  was  a  thing  most  proper  to  cultivate. 
He  further  believed  that  it  was  impious  to  wage  war;  or 
at  anv  rate,  to  risk  the  chances  of  war  lest  the  sacred 
temples  and  altajs  be  desecrated  by  its  ravages.  Thus 
from  a  high  antiquity,  and  largely  out  of  respect  to  the 
memory  and  works  of  this  king,  the  image-makers  were 
classed  as  the  futherers  of  the  holy  cause  and  exempted 
from  many  of  the  restrictions  and  persecutions  which  in 
later  times  became  the  source  of  bloodshed. 

There  was  a  regular  trade  society  of  the  pearl  fishers, 
margaritarii ,w  who,  it  appears,  communicated  with  the 

is  Donatl,  Roma,  Vetus  et  Recent,  p.  827, 51.  It  Is  also  mentioned  by  Muratorl, 

Thesaurus,  Veterum  Imcrtptionum. 

16  Alti.  2,  p.  516.  De  Unguentarils.  17  Orell.,  2,988. 

18  Orell.,  InsoripHonum,  Latinarum  Collectio,  Nos.  1,602,  4,076,  4,218.  One  of 
these.  No.  4,076  is  a  genuine  trade  union.  No.  4,218  comes  under  the  title  of 
dries  et  Opifica ,  leaving  it  questionable  as  to  its  having  been  a  private  business . 


f 


BOOKBINDERS. 


435 


workshops  in  the  cities,  which  their  labor  supplied  with 
pearls  in  the  rough.  Diving*  and  scraping  in  the  distant 
waters  for  pearls  was,  at  the  starting  point  of  this  preca¬ 
rious  business,  a  trade  which  to  render  successful,  nee  led 
to  be  fortified  by  a  federation  with  the  inlayers  and  other 
pearl  finishers  working  at  home.  Much  of  this  pearl  was 
used  in  decorating  the  images  which  the  demands  of  an 
idolatrous  faith  places  upon  the  market ;  and  by  thus  fur¬ 
nishing  labor,  gave  bread  to  the  working  people.  On  a 
superficial  view,  the  fact  that  the  great  artists,  such  a 
Phidias,  Myron,  Polycletus,  Alcamenes  of  the  heroic  school 
of  Ageladas,  or  the  still  more  versatile  school  of  a  few 
years  later  of  which  Lysippas,  Praxiteles  and  Scopas  were 
the  heroes,  we  do  not  find  the  pearl  industry  to  have  ex¬ 
tensively  entered  into  the  composition  of  the  great  sculp¬ 
tures.  But  we  must  remember  first,  that  the  descriptions 
are  defective,  and  next,  that  the  originals  are  lost.19  We 
know  that  pearls  were  used  in  archaic  times.  If  they  en¬ 
tered  into  the  composition  of  idols — and  there  seems  to 
be  no  ground  for  doubt  of  this — it  must  probably  have 
been  by  inla;  kg. 

Great  skill  was  required  in  the  whole  pearl  business. 
Among  the  Etruscans  and  Romans  the  art  turned  rather 
toward  the  trinket  manufacture.  Many  of  the  little  gods 
of  the  household,  emblems,  talismans,  mementos  and 
charms  w~ere  gemmed  with  pearls.  Of  course,  these 
things,  at  this  late  period,  if  dug  from  the  ruins,  would 
fail  to  discover  the  perishable  pearls ;  because  the  delicate 
carbonate  crumbles  with  moisture,  neglect  and  time. 

We  find  a  few  dim  accounts  of  book-gluers  mixed  up 
with  the  amanuenses  or  scribes.  They  acted  the  part,  so 
to  speak,  of  the  modern  printers.  These,  together  with 
poets,  teachers  and  persons  engaged  in  medicine  and  sur¬ 
gery,  were  always,  or  nearly  always,  of  lowly  birth.20 

19  A  more  thorough  ransacking  of  this  subject  may  bring  to  light  much  of 
value  regarding  the  onions  of  image-makers  who  inscribed  their  record  in  the 

Greek  tongue. 

20  Guhl  and  Kohner,  Life  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  p  526.  “Three  classes 
amongst  the  slaves  and  freedmen,  held  a  distinguished  position  by  their  intel¬ 
lectual  accomplishments,  viz:  the  medici,  chirurgi  and  literati.”  '  s  to  f  lie  lite  -  ati, 
idem,  p.  529  we  quote  as  follows :  “  We  have  already  mentioned  the  literati ,  cul¬ 
tivated  slaves,  generally  of  Greek  origin,  who  had  to  copy  books  or  write  from 
dictation.  By  these  slaves  manuscripts  we  e  copied  with  astounding  celerity, 
with  the  aid  of  abbreviations  called,  from  their  inventor,  Ti  .  a  freed  man  of 
Cicero,  Tironian  notes.  These  copies,  sometimes  f  I.  of  mistakes  went  to  the 
shops  of  the  bookseller  ( billiopotaj ,  unless  these  kept  copyists  in  their  own 


436 


IMAGE-MAKERS. 


Glners,  glutinatores ,  are  spolren  of  by  Cicero.®  That  they 
were  numerous  is  evident  from  the  large  amount  of  work 
required  of  this  kind.  The  great  histories  of  ancient 
writers  were  copied  times  without  number  and  some  of 
them  were  bound  in  boards  or  leather  or  cloth  with  much 
art  and  taste.  It  is,  however,  beyond  our  power,  as  yet 
to  discover  whether  the  book-binders  possessed  a  trade 
organization.  The  fact  that  most  of  the  other  trades  had 
unions  renders  it  probable  that  they  also  were  organized, 
and  it  is  possible  that  inscriptions  may  yet  be  discovered 
revealing  the  fact. 


shops.  Numerous  copies  were  thus  produced  in  little  time.  The  satirical  writ* 
ings  of  Ovidus,  Propertius  and  Tdartialis  were  in  everybody’s  hands,  as  were  also 
the  works  of  Homer  and  Virgil,  the  odes  of  Horace,  and  the  speeches  of  Cicero; 
grammars,  anthologies,  etc.i  lor  schools,  were  reproduced  in  the  same  manner; 
indeed,  the  antique  book-trade  was  carried  on  on  a  scale  hardly  surpassed  by 
modern  times."  Much  is  taken  from  Pliny,  Natural  History,  lib.  XXIX.  init. 

21  Cicero,  Ad  Atticum,  liber,  IV.  c.  iv.  1.  See  also  Orell.,  InscriptMnum Latin- 
arum  Collertio,  No.  2,925,  4,198.  Glutinarius ,  the  inscription  is  on  an  elegant 
tomb  inside  of  a  vault,  according  to  Gruter,  copied  by  (Orell.,  Artes  et  Opificia, 
Voi.  Ti.  p.  293),  See  bookbinding,  Ed.  Bevan.  Series  of  British  Manufactory 
Industries,  (Article  by  Freeman  Wood,  pp.  70-94). 


CHAPTER  XX 


TRADE  UNIONS  CONCLUDED. 

THE  TAX-GATHERERS.  FINAL  REFLECTIONS. 

Unions  op  Collectors — A  Vast  Organized  System  with  a  Uni¬ 
form  and  Harmoniously  Working  Business — Trade  Unions 
under  Government  Aid  and  Security — The  Ager  Publicus  of 
Rome — True  Golden  Age  of  Organized  Labor — Government 
Land — A  prodigious  Slave  System  their  Enemy — Victims  of 
the  Slave  System — Premonitions  on  the  Coming  of  Jesus — 
Demand  by  His  Teachings  for  Absolute  Equality. 

Judging  from  all  the  records  within  our  reach,  it  was 
Numa  who  first  recognized  the  necessity  of  regularly  or¬ 
ganized  trades  unions  for  express  purposes  of  purveying 
goods  of  every  kind,  in  a  systematic  manner.  He  was  a 
strictly  business  man;  and  the  most  important  business 
has  ever  been  that  of  getting  the  means  of  life.  In  ad¬ 
dition  to  the  federated  trades  there  had  to  be  the  tax 
collectors;  otherwise  the  expenses  of  the  government 
could  not  be  defrayed.  For  this,  there  was  a  set  of  work¬ 
men,  whose  express  business  was  to  traverse  city  and 
country  with  their  credentials  from  the  regularly  chart¬ 
ered  union  of  the  Vectigalaria  or  tax  collectors.  There 
were,  at  that  early  time,  no  such  arrangements  as  now  ex¬ 
ist,  by  which  the  government  did  its  own  work  of  this 
kind.  A  labor  guild  or  union  did  this  work.  We  have 
evidence  showing  that  the  men  going  on  their  rounds  col¬ 
lecting  the  taxes,  were  sometimes  severe,  even  brutal  to 
the  poor  farmers,  forcing  them  to  comply  with  the  re¬ 
quirements  of  the  law. 

Of  the  branches  into  which  king  Numa  distributed  the 


438 


TAX-GA  THERERS. 


working  people  wc  have  already  spoken  elsewhere,  rep¬ 
resenting  them  as  they  appear  to  us  from  evidence, 
through  a  long  vista  covering  what  we,  for  our  own 
scheme  of  reasoning,  term  the  golden  age  because  the 
workmen  thrived.  Meantime  we  are  well  aware  that  the 
so-called  Golden  Age  of  Rome,  is  reckoned  between  the 
years  250  and  14  before  Christ;  but  this  calculation  is 
made  by  historians  of  the  competitive  system,  and  befits 
itself  to  conquest  and  literature,  not  to  the  progress  of  so¬ 
cial  prosperity.  It  actually  begins  about  the  time  this  so¬ 
cial  and  economical  prosperity  had  reached  its  zenith. 
We  cannot  admit  the  Golden  Age  of  Rome  to  have  begun 
at  so  late  a  date.  From  a  well  sought  point  of  view  of 
sociology  this  era  began  with  the  recognition,  by  the  law 
of  Numa,  of  the  right  of  free  organization;  and  the  la¬ 
borers’  methodical  assumption  of  the  business  of  supply¬ 
ing  the  people  with  the  means  of  life.  This  was  the  true 
golden  age  of  Rome;  and  as  it  also  covers  the  largest 
part  of  the  era  ordinarily  admitted  to  have  been  the 
golden  age,  including  the  great  period  of  Roman  conquest 
and  the  splendid  era  of  literature,  it  only  varies  in  hav¬ 
ing  commenced  670,  instead  of  250  years  before  Christ. 

If  it  was  necessary  for  the  scheme  of  Numa  to  have  the 
public  lands  formed  by  the  guilds  or  societies  of  practi¬ 
cal  agriculture  it  was  also  as  necessary  for  him  to  institute 
some  reliable  means  of  collecting  the  fruits  of  this  labor 
and  distributing  them  among  those  whom  the  law  recog¬ 
nized  as  the  true  owners.  We  have  had  abundant  evi¬ 
dence  that  among  the  ancient  Indo-European  Aryans,  no 
persons  except  those  born  to  an  inheritance  possessed  the 
right  of  owning  the  public  domain.  Even  the  patricians 
who  were  the  privileged  class,  and  the  makers  of  the  laws, 
did  not,  until  a  comparatively  late  date,  attempt  to  get  per- 
s  nal  possession  of  the  ager  publicus  of  Italy.  The  plebei¬ 
ans  who  were  the  only  workers,  never  owned  any  land. 
The  slate  owned  the  land  and  the  proletaries  worked  it. 
The  fruits  of  the  lands  had  to  be  brought  to  the  people. 
What  is  meant  by  the  state  ownership,  in  ancient  law,  is 
citizen  ownership — the  state  holding  it  in  common  for  the 
citizens.  But  who  were  the  citizens  ?  It  certainly  was 
not  the  working  people,  who  were  the  outcasts,  the  de¬ 
scendants  of  the  slaves,  or  the  slaves  themselves.  They 


ANCIENT  PLAN  OF  TAXATION 


439 


owned  nothing  and  could  own  nothing.  But  their  func¬ 
tion  was  to  do  the  work  ;  and  N  uma  permitted  them  to 
organize  and  do  the  work  socially  or  in  common. 

After  the  harvest  the  grain  had  to  be  distributed 
among  the  citizens  who,  according  to  the  law,  were  the 
owners  of  the  land,  the  state  holding  it  for  them  in  trust. 
The  workers  were  always  obliged  to  recognize  their  lowly 
condition,  and  were  always  glad  to  get  enough  of  what 
they  produced  to  keep  them  alive. 

The  plan  instituted  whereby  to  collect  these  products 
and  distribute  them  among  the  privileged  citizens  and 
others,  was  organization  of  the  vedigalarii  or  collectors  of 
incomes,  who  did  this  work  through  a  system  of  societies. 
The  society  had  a  manager  or  principal  overseer,  procu¬ 
rator,  and  was  also  supplied' with  a  quaestor  or  inspector, 
who  was  perhaps  the  chief  clerk.  Then  came  sometimes 
a  secretary,  a  treasurer  and  foremen  and  the  working 
hands,  all  of  whom  constituted  the  membership  of  the 
union  or  commune.  The  old  name  of  the  secretary  was 
sometimes  set  down  in  the  inscriptions  found  by  the  an¬ 
tiquaries,  as  cornicularius,1 *  which  signified  that  the  secre¬ 
tary  had  risen  to  the  place  by  promotion.  It  appears 
from  the  numerous  inscriptions  cut  in  stones,  that  these 
customs  collectors  had  societies  or  unions  all  over  the 
provinces  under  Roman  domination.3  At  Lyons,  after 
the  conquest  of  Caesar,  there  were  several  of  them.*  Their 
work  was  to  collect  the  proceeds  of  the  harvests. 
Others  collected  the  products  of  the  manufactories:  others 
the  proceeds  of  the  fisheries.  Even  the  proceeds  of  the 
brothels  were  collected  and  distributed  in  money.4 * 6  All 
the  multiform  labor  of  collecting  had  to  be  done,  and  the 
state  made  it  obligatory  upon  the  customs-unions  to  do 

their  work  well.  This  accounts  for  Granier’s  ‘  remark 

%  / 

1  Later  an  assistant  secretary.  Cod.  Theodosii,  VII.  4,  82. 

1  See  Orell.,  Inscriplionum  Colleclio,  6,642.  Vectigalia  and  many  others. 

8  Boissean,  Inscription  dc  Lyon,  VII.  25,  p.  272,  found  one  which  reads  as 
follows:  “  Memoriae  Aurelii Ceciliani  preepositus.  Vectigalium posuit  Epictatus 

Alumnus— Lugduni.”  Meaning  that  Epic  the  apprentice  inscribed  the  slab  to 
the  honor  of  the  director  one  Aurelius  Cecil,  in  Lyons, 

<  Sanger,  History  of  Prostitution;  Rome ,  p.  68:  “The  Prostibulce  (strangers 
not  organized)  paid  no  tax  to  the  state ;  while  their  registered  rivals  (organized 
meretrices ,  seep.  66  idem),  contributed  largely  to  the  municipal  treasury.”  Greece, 
48.  "  Any  speculator  had  a  right  to  set  up  a  dicteriou  by  paying  the  tax  to  the 
state.” 

6  Histoire  des  Classes  Ouvritres,  chap.  xiv.  Anc  ienZ  Trad*  Unions  and  Their  De¬ 
velopment. 


440 


TAX-  OA  THERERS. 


that  these  customs  collectors  were  sometimes  brutal  to 
the  poor  farmers  whose  unions  failed  to  garner  as  much 
as  the  law  required.®  It  is  evident  that  the  collectors  had 
to  put  themselves  in  direct  business  relation  with  the 
union  of  vectuarii  or  teamsters ;  as  they  more  frequently 
took  the  produce  itself  than  the  money.  Their  practice 
was  to  supply  the  citizens,  not  so  much  with  the  money 
these  proceeds  of  labor  were  worth,  but  with  the  proceeds 
themselves.7 

The  trade  unions  were  recognized  by  the  state  and  held 
responsible  to  the  state  for  their  work.  If  in  conveying 
the  grain  from  the  farms  to  Rome,  the  wagon  was  attacked 
by  mountaineer  brigands  and  the  goods  lost,  the  citizens, 
who  were  the  state,  held,  not  the  teamsters  but  the  whole 
union  responsible.  In  almost  all  cases,  however,  the  pro¬ 
duce  of  the  ager  pubiicus  was  transmitted  to  Rome  by  sea. 

For  instance;  a  certain  quota  of  the  province  of  Aquit- 
ania,  or  the  neighboring  province  of  Lugdunensis,  where 
are  found  many  relics  of  these  societies,  is  claimed  at  Rome. 
Lugdunum  or  Lyons  was  connected  by  water  every  step 
of  the  way  to  Rome.  The  society  at  Lyons  sent  the  grain 
down  the  river  Rhone  by  barges  to  the  Mediterranean.  At 
Arles,  a  ship  took  it  on  board  and  consigned  it  to  Ostia,  the 
mouth  of  the  Tiber  and  port  of  Rome.  Now  the  barges  of 
the  Tiber  had  to  belong  to  a  union.  So  there  were  unions 
of  bargers,  caudicarii.  The  first  society  guaranteed  the 
safe  arrival  of  the  grain  as  far  as  the  mouths  of  the  Rhone, 
Ora  Rhodani.  Here  were  the  ships  of  another  society 
to  further  convey  it  to  the  port  of  Rome,  so  hither  it  had 
to  be  conveyed  on  board  a  ship.  Thus  is  seen  why  the  sea< 
faring  men  also  must  have  an  organization;  otherwise,  if  the 
ship  was  lost,  captain,  crew  and  cargo,  there  would  remain 
nobody  responsible;  and  the  citizens  would  be  the  sole  suf¬ 
ferers.  It  became  necessary  therefore,  since  the  govern¬ 
ment  had  jobbed  out  one  part  of  this  business  to  a  commune, 
that  it  do  the  same  thing  in  their  case,  because  the  rich  citi¬ 
zens  who  were  to  be  fed  by  labor,  though,  personifying 
government,  could  legislate  or  conduct  war,  could  not  work; 
because  upon  it  there  was  a  taint.  So  the  order  of  the  navi- 

•  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  book  V  chap,  43,  explains  t.je  power  of  the 
law  permitting  and  furthering  these  organizations 

*  Granier.  Histoire  des  Classes  Ouvrurs ,  chap.  xiv.  MuiMi  a  hlit  '  nal  informa¬ 
tion  may  be  obtained  by  reading  this  valuable  chapter  of  31.  v.ranier  s  work. 


THE  RESPONSIBLE  ONIONS. 


44i 


cularti  existed;  and  being  chartered  by  government,  was 
made  responsible  for  the  loss  of  any  cargo.  When  the  cargo 
arrived  at  Ostia,  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber,  sixteen  miles  from 
Rome,  it  was  conveyed  to  the  granaries  of  the  city  by  the 
societies  of  boatmen,  known  as  caudicarii,  bargemen,  under 
guarantee,  precisely  in  the  same  manner  as  in  former  cases. 
Thus  for  the  least  possible  trouble  and  with  utmost  security, 
the  government  or  non-laboring  citizens  got  the  greatest 
possible  amount  of  produce  from  the  ager  publicus ,  or  com¬ 
mon  land.  Yet  the  people  who  labored  were  satisfied  and 
thrived  better  than  they  were  ever  known  to  thrive  under 
any  system,  because  their  industry  produced  enormously 
and  their  strong  arms  made  labor  easy,  agreeable  and  safe. 

Now  the  customs  collectors  or  vectigalarii  were  interested 
in  all  these  details  of  supply  ;  because  the  government  looked 
to  them  directly  or  indirectly  for  everything  the  citizen 
population  had  to  live  upon  from  year  to  year. 

But  the  supply  of  grain,  wine,  oil  and  other  agricultural 
products  was  not  all  these  tax  collectors  bad  to  attend  to. 
There  were  many  artisan  societies.  These  we  have  treated 
separately  and  in  regular  order,  according  to  their  import¬ 
ance.  They  all  had  more  or  less  to  do  with  the  tax  or  cus¬ 
toms  collectors,  with  whom  they  were  interlinked  in  the 
great  social  bond.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  the  pork 
butchers  union,*  there  were  officers  appointed  whose  busi¬ 
ness  was  to  go  personally,  or  send,  into  the  stock  farm 
country  and  collect  the  tax  either  in  money  or  in  kind. 
This  would,  of  course,  entail  an  immense  amount  more  labor 
than  that  attached  to  butchery.  It  would  entail  the  whole 
business  of  the  d  rover.  Weighing  would  require  much  at¬ 
tention  and  an  inspection  of  all  the  various  operations  of 
several  vocations. 

Slabs  have  been  found  to  the  number  of  262,  bearing  in¬ 
scriptions  of  the  vectigalia ,  of  different  dates,  ranging  mostly 
from  the  time  of  the  first  Csesars  to  that  of  the  emperor 
Constantine.  These  262  include  only  those  registered  by 
Orelli  in  his  work  on  the  Roman  Antiquities.  Great  num¬ 
bers  of  those  unions  probably  existed  of  which  no  record 

»  Granier,  whose  researches  into  these  societies  and  the  laws  governing  them 
reveal  an  astonishing  versatility  and  accuracy,  says  that  very  many,  if  not  all  the 
commercial  trades  had  officers .  whose  work  was  to  oversee  the  customs  collec¬ 
tions.  See  idem,  pp.  310-315.  There  was  a  Boatmen's  insurance  mentioned  by 
Livy  rxlil.  cap.  44.  Beckmann,  Hist,  of  Invention*,  (Bohn)  L  p.  284.  (Caudica- 
ril> 


442 


TAX-  GA  THERERS. 


was  kept,  and  antiquaries  of  the  future  may  yet  reveal  more. 
On  the  whole  these  facts  regarding  inner  workings  of  the 
ancient  human  family  present  a  picture  of  deep  interest,  re¬ 
vealing  as  they  do  a  system  of  industry  unique  in  its  method 
of  supplying  the  great  population  of  Rome  at  that  time  con¬ 
taining  probably  about  2,000,000  inhabitants9  and  its  nu¬ 
merous  municipia  or  provincial  cities  and  town  with  me^ns 
of  life.  The  vectigalia  evidently  covered  more  of  the  im¬ 
mense  business  of  those  times  than  the  ordinary  reader 
would  ascribe  to  them.  Orelli,10  speaks  of  iron  miners  who 
sometimes  interlinked  with  the  mines  situated  at  great  dis¬ 
tances  from  the  city  ;  yet  it  would  appear  by  this  mention 
that  the  miners  far  away  in  the  mountains  and  perfectly  or¬ 
ganized,  were  in  close  and  systematic,  if  not  happy  mutual 
communication  with  the  forgers’  association  stationed  at 
Rome. 

The  most  remarkable  part  of  the  system  was  that  it  was 
government  work ;  that  the  work  was  performed  by  trade 
unions  instead  of  isolated  individuals  as  in  the  competitive 
system;  and  that  during  many  centuries  through  which  this 
system  existed,  both  in  war  and  peace,  the  ancient  working 
people  were  prosperous  and  happy.  Of  course,  this  organ¬ 
ization  does  not  apply  in  any  form  to  slaves.  This  terrible 
scourge  of  the  human  race  still  existed ;  but  there  are  strong 
proofs  that  the  trade  unions  were  at  one  time  making  in¬ 
roads  upon  the  slave  system  which  required  care  by  the 
masters  and  slave  owners  in  order  to  conduct  business; 
whereas  the  trade  union  system  endorsed  bykingNuma 
lifted  all  the  troublesome  details  and  responsibilities  from 
the  shoulders  of  the  patricians  who  regarded  individual  la¬ 
bor  as  a  disgrace.  Labor  being  a  humiliation  to  the  pro¬ 
pertied  class  who  managed  the  government  land  but  did  not 
perform  the  actual  work,  it  was  a  matter  of  convenience  for 
them  to  have  trade  unions.  The  state,  then,  was  their  great 
patron  and  protector.  Rich  individual  slave  owners  like 
Crassus  or  Cicero  or  Nicias  could  job  out  their  slaves’  labor 
to  persons  of  enterprise,  but  the  very  pride  of  their  blood 
prevented  them  from  undertaking  any  except  the  noble  en- 

»  Consult  Dr.  Beloch.  Bulletin  de  Statisque  tte  I’lnstitute  International ,  tome. 
I.  ann&e  1886,  p.  62  sqq.  Roma. 

10  Roman  antiquities.  No.  1,239  vectigalia  ferrariorum  also  ferrifodinariL 
See  also  Mur;  972,  10.  The  inscr.  reads:  “D.  M.  I’rimonU  ferrariariorum  vital!* 
eontuber.”  Found  at  the  mines  of  Niinea. 


NO  REVOLUTION. 


448 


tcrprises  of  war  and  politics.  There  was  nobody  to  com 
pete  with  the  unions  and  the  state  became  their  great  em¬ 
ployer.  But  we  have  seen  in  our  account  of  strikes  and  up¬ 
risings  that  human  cupidity,  taking  advantage  of  the  slave 
system  and  by  means  of  it,  grasping,  holding  and  tilling  the 
ager  publicus,  finally  destroyed  the  public  trade  unions. 

That  the  trade  union  or  social  system  was  good  there 
seems  to  be  no  ground  for  doubt;  but  the  workman  being 
stamped  by  the  old  religio-political  jealousy  of  paganism 
which  branded  him  as  a  wretch,  preventing  him  from  taking 
political  action,  whereby  to  secure  and  fortify  his  system, 
gave  the  grandees  all  the  advantage  because  they  made  the 
laws.  When,  therefore,  the  unions  found  that  they  must 
exercise  their  political  power,  which  they  did  in  later  times, 
it  was  too  late.  They  were  themselves  too  deeply  tinged 
with  the  deadly,  unmanly  sense  that  their  masters  were 
superior  to  them  by  birth.  There  had  been  no  Christ  to 
boldly  declare  a  new  state  of  things  based  upon  absolute 
equality  by  birth  and  natural  rights  of  all  men.  Seeing  the 
encroachments  upon  themselves  as  well  as  upon  the  public 
lands  their  sole  source  of  raw  material,  the  trade  unions 
tardily  fell  into  the  struggle,  learned  to  wrestle  valiantly, 
suffered  a  more  pronounced  hatred  of  their  masters,  grew 
in  self-dignity  but  gradually  lost  in  vested  rights,  forced  up 
a  great  social  struggle  but  incurred  the  deep-rooted  hatred 
of  Cicero  and  Csesar,  grew  poorer,  more  numerous,  more 
secret,  vindictive  and  conniving  and  wrought  up  a  spirit  all 
over  Greece,  Rome,  Judea  and  the  provinces,  which  ren¬ 
dered  possible  the  kindling  of  that  marvelous  revolution  that 
destroyed  the  identity  of  ancient  paganism. 

But  there  is  one  thing  our  researches  fail  to  discover, 
do  not  find  clear  and  sufficient  evidences  of  a  system 
ot  agricultural  communes.  These  may  have  existed.  We 
are  in  doubt.  Everything  else  was  organized.  Where  is 
this  missing  link?  Had  it  existed,  would  not  the  great  trade 
nnion  system  have  grown  so  complete  as  to  gradually  ob¬ 
tain  the  ascendency,  political  as  well  as  industrial  and  thus 
been  able  to  realize  thousands  of  years  ago,  the  revolution  ? 


CHAPTER  XXL 


ROMANS  AND  GREEKS. 

THE  COUNTLESS  COMMUNES. 

Unions  Or  Romans  and  Greeks  compared — Miscellaneous  Soci¬ 
eties  of  Tradesmen — Sbipcarpenters — Boatmen — Vesselmak- 
ers — Millers— Organization  of  the  Lupanarii — Of  the  Anci¬ 
ent  Firemen — Description  of  the  Greek  Fraternities — The 
Eh  anoi  and  Thiasoi — Strange  Mixture  of  Fiety  and  Business 
— Trade  Unions  of  Svria  and  North  Palestine — Their  Offi- 
eers — Membership  and  Influence  of  Women — Large  Num¬ 
bers  of  Communes  in  the  islands  of  the  Eastern  Mediterra¬ 
nean — Their  Organizations  Known  and  Described  From  their 
Inscriptions. 

All  antiquity  was  at  one  time  a  hive  of  trade  unions. 

Nearly  every  species  of  business  was  organized.  Especially 
was  this  the  case  in  southern  Italy,  where  Plato  found  a 
system  of  communism  extensively  prevailing,  supposed  by 
some  to  have  been  planted  there  by  Pythagoras.1  The  early 
inhabitants  of  the  Italian  peninsula  were  well  acquainted 
with  trade  unionism;  and  traces  of  it,  if  not  mentioned  are 
discernable  in  history  and  this  fact  stands  as  the  funda¬ 
mental  solution  to  many  of  the  otherwise  incomprehensible 
things  which  have  puzzled  modern  historians.  Neverthe¬ 
less  the  nobility  and  its  laws  of  primogeniture  reigned  in 
circles  of  politics  and  power.  Plato  is  known  to  have  vis¬ 
ited  Italy  several  times  in  search  of  material  for  his  ideal 
state.  lie  was,  however,  so  much  of  an  aristocrat,  or  so 
enslaved  by  his  environments  that  he  signally  failed  to  give 

*  Drumann,  A rlexter  und  Communisten  in  Griechenland  und  Ron i.  somewhere 
remarks  that  Pythagoras  ancl  Numa  were  not  only  contemporaries  hut  personal 
friends.  If  go,  we  cannot  wonder  that  Numa  bejriended  the  trade  uniong. 


ORGANIZED  SAILORS, 


445 


the  world  the  benefit  of  his  comm  uni  stical  lucubrations.  The 
nearest  he  could  possibly  get  to  a  decent  govern mi  nt  was 
to  one  of  bosses,  policemen  and  slaves,  and  the  sociologist 
of  our  day  is  forced  to  drop  Plato  with  a  species  of  chagrin 
or  disgust.  Aristotle  did  better;  but  both  were  aristocrats, 
enslaved  to  great  men  of  wealth.  Both  Solon  and  Numa, 
long  before  them  had  planted  the  real,  practical  government 
which  the  world  is  at  this  moment  following.  Though  Aris- 
totle  could  analyze  the  course  the  world  should  and  does 
take,  yet  he  was  too  Pagan-bound  to  see  beyond  the  galling 
bands  of  slavery. 

The  Fabri  navalium,  ship  carpenters  and  boat  makers,  of 
the  Tiber  had  well  regulated  unions  which  were  considered 
among  the  most  respectable  of  the  organizations.  These 
Associations  were  found  along  the  banks  of  the  navigable 
rivers  and  the  coasts  of  the  sea  on  both  sides  of  the  penin¬ 
sula  and  also  in  Sicily. 

Of  the  boatmen’s  unions,  collegia  naviculariorum ,  the 
greater  number,  according  to  our  evidence,  were  to  be  found 
in  the  country.  There  could  not  have  been  many  boatmen 
at  Rome ;  but  we  have  a  mention,  among  others,  by  the 
great  jurist  Gaius,  who  speaks  of  them  in  discriminating  the 
right  of  organization  in  later  times.2  The  unions  of  boatmen 
were  naturally  confined  to  the  sea  shores.  We  might  speak 
of  them  as  possibly  connected  directly  or  indirectly  with 
the  lawless  noatmen  who  swarmed  the  sea  from  Naples  to 
Syracuse,  and  whom  Plutarch  says  Spnrtacus  found  to  be 
treacherous,  without  principles  and  looking  only  for  grain. 
Even  to  this  day  the  Mediterranean  is  lined  with  them  from 
Gibralter  to  Barcelona  and  thence  to  Toronto.  At  Genoa 
and  Nice  and  on  the  Baltic,  they  are  still  well  organized 
and  take  advantage  of  every  opportunity  to  gain  a  lira  by 
fair  means  and  in  all  their  methods  to  attain  this  end  are 
thoroughly  sustained  by  one  another,  as  they  enjoy  all  the 
mutually  assisting  quirks  known  to  their  union. 

The  collegium  vasculariorum 8  (metal  vessel  makers),  was, 
of  course,  a  union  of  potters;  but  it  appears  their  art  was 
mostly,  if  not  quite  confined  to  manufacturing  vessels  in 

*  Gaius,  Digest,  1,  III.  4.  “  Item  collegia  Romae  certa  sunt,  quorum  corpus 
aanctis  eoll.  atque  constltutionibus  principalibus  confirmatum  est,  veluti  pis- 
torum  et  quorundam  aliorum  et  naviculariorum  et  inprovinciis  sunt.” 

;  An  old  inscription  mutilated  by  age  and  ill  usage  reads:  •* P.  Monetius  so¬ 
ciorum  libert  3  1‘bilogenes  vasculari  s  VeturiaC.  1.  fc-alviasibei  et  sueis.”  (Sei 
Fabx*etti,  Inscriptionum  Antiquarian  Explicate,  632,  276.) 


446 


TEE  COUNTLESS  COMMUNES 


metals.  The  vascularii  were  ski! led  workmen.  They  ofteD 
wrought  beautiful  urns  in  bronze  and  other  material.  Some 
of  the  delicately  chiseled  amphorae  having  two  handles  were 
of  their  lvorkmanship,  although  most  amphorae  were  made 
of  potters’  clay.  Many  vessels  in  gold  were  the  work  of 
their  hands.  They  are  knowD  to  have  realized  well  by  vir¬ 
tue  of  their  trade  union;  because  their  patrons  were  largely 
the  proud  gens  who  were  not  stingy  about  the  amount  of 
cost,  if  they  could  have  their  aesthetic  tastes  gratified. 

The  collegium  pistorum ,  union  of  millers,  who  ground 
grain  in  mortars  and  afterwards  in  mills,  was  also  a  trade 
organization.  This  trade  was  a  very  important  one,  as  it 
furnished  the  farmed  for  the  family  use  of  all  who  could  af- 
fored  to  eat  wheat  flour  or  any  of  the  cereals,  course  or  fine. 
When  we  further  take  into  account  that  it  required  at  least 
seventy  men  to  grind  as  much  grain  in  a  given  time  as  is 
now  ground  in  a  steam  mill  by  a  single  man,  we  may  realize 
that  in  Rome  and  vicinity  there  must  have  been  several 
thousand  workmen  constantly  employed  at  this  handicraft 
in  order  to  produce  enough  to  supply  the  demand.  It 
must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  there  were  many  people 
at  Rome  and  everywhere,  and  from  the  earliest  times,  too 
poor  to  enjoy  bread  and  who  were  obliged  to  subsist  on 
peas,  roots  and  other  cheap  food.4  Nevertheless  the  mil¬ 
lers  were  numerous,  and  being  organized,  they  succeeded 
in  competing  with  slave  labor  and  got  considerable  of  the 
work  to  do  as  a  free  industry. 

Originally  or  in  the  remotest  antiquity,  all  such  work  was 
done  by  slaves  on  the  paternal  estate,  under  the  eye  of  the 
paterfamilies  or  head  of  the  family ;  but  when  those  de¬ 
graded  slaves  became  numerous  and  began  to  think  for 
themselves,  as  we  have  previously  seen,  they  secured  manu- 

*  Feeding  the  laboring  class  poor  food  Is  of  early  record.  Herodotus  lEutrrp 
125)  expressly  tells  how  cheap  fed  were  laborers  who  built  the  great  Egyptian 
monuments.  They  were  glad  to  get  onions,  garlic  and  roots.  The  same  para¬ 
graph  explains  the  cost  of  their  living:  “  2e< Trjp.avrax  Si  Sid  ypappdTmv  Aiy vmmm 
ev  Tjj  nvpa.iJ.iSt, ,  oaa  is  re  <rvpp.atT)v  nai  Kpop.p.va  teal  cncopoSa  a^auruu i&rj  roitm 
ipya^opevoicri'  xal  tot  e/xi  tv  pepivijcrO aird  6  ipp.svevsp.oi  iwiAe\6ptvos  rd  ypdpuur* 
e<f>T]  e£a/co< ria  teal  ^lAia  raAavra  apyvpi ov  T«TeA*<r0ai.M  Still  earlier,  Homer, 
iOdyssy ,  XIV.  414,  415^  416,)  says  ; 

“'A£e0’  vtov  rbv  apiorov ,  leva  (eivtft  iepevar o* 

T-q^eSanw  irpos  S’  auToi  bvrjcropeO’,  otir ep  oifvr 
Arji'  e\op.tv  ndcr\ovTe c  viav  even'  apy urS6vrtor.,t 
Shows  that  the  poor  led  on  pork.  See  Quhl  and  Honor,  lAfs  of  Ok*  Orteks  mod 
Romans,  p.  601  for  the  later  Roman  food.  Virgil,  Eclogue,  II.  ▼  9  10,  pars*’? 
smallage  and  onions;  So  Horace,  Ad  Eisonem;  V.  249;  “  Nac  si  quid  frictl  ciceri 
probat  et  nucis  emptor.”  Pliny ,  XXVI.  3. 


advantages  of  organization 


447 


missions  and  thus  the  trade  unionists  were  mostly  freedmen 
who  had  the  sagacity  to  organize.  The  advantages  in  those 
days,  of  a  good,  sound,  business-like  union  for  each  trade 
must  have  been  very  great ;  especially  so,  as  their  unions 
were  communistical,  and  used  as  means  of  convivial  enjoy¬ 
ment,  as  well  as  for  economic  ends. 

Of  the  collegium incendarium,  or  firemen’s  association  men¬ 
tion  is  made  by  Mommsen,  who  wonders  why  they  should 
be  suppressed ;  since  burial  and  firemen’s  societies  were 
among  those  saved.1 

The  collegium  Vinariorwm ,  (wine  dealers  and  wine  vault- 
ers)  was  an  institution  of  later  date  than  Numa,  who  did  not 
encourage  wine  drinking.  If  there  are  data  extant  regard¬ 
ing  them  at  so  early  a  time,  we  have  failed  to  find  them. 
During  the  time  of  the  emperors,  however,  they  were  the 
subject  of  discussion  as  to  whether  they  should  be  sup¬ 
pressed  or  exempted.*  The  collegium  lupanariorum  (bro¬ 
thel  keepers),  as  is  seen  in  the  passage  here  cited,  was  an 
institution  well  known  in  the  later  ages  of  the  Roman  em¬ 
pire  and  two  centuries  before  Christ  there  were  secret  asso¬ 
ciations  of  the  lupanarii,7  of  which  an  account  has  gone 
into  *  history.  These  were  curious  products  of  the  mania 
for  organization  that  must  have  existed  at  Rome.  But  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  whole  plebeian  class  of  inhab¬ 
itants  were  out  in  the  cold,  competitive  world,  and  de¬ 
pending  each  upon  his  or  her  trade  or  profession  which  he 
or  she  considered  right,  so  long  as  it  was  patronized  by  the 
elegant  people  of  the  other  class  who  had  social  as  welf  aa 
political  institutions  upon  which  they  could  base  a  guaranty 
of  safety. 

During  a  visit  in  Europe  we  became  indebted  to  Mr. 
Henry  Tompkins  of  the  Friendly  Societies’  Registration  at 
London,  from  whose  hand  was  first  received  a  copy  of  his 
pamphlet  on  the  Friendly  Societies  of  Antiquity.  We  also 
made  the  personal  acquaintance  of  Professors  Vogt,  Errera, 
Huber.  Yigano  and  many  others  who  referred  us  to  volumes 

6  “Ut  enlm  eenatus  e.  g.  et  fi-nerum  causa  jgb>in©endiorum  jus  coeundi  re- 

Bquerit,  qua  ratione  vetiti  sunt,  ii  qui  funernrtecS^isiointererant  incendiorum 
causa  societatem  inire?  ”  (Mommsen,  De  CV’%ye«  et+Sodaliciis  Romano  rum,  p. 
*9  J.  . 

*>  Corpora  omnium  constitult  vinariorum  iupntvafiorum  caligariorum  et  om- 
aio  omnium  artium  bisque  ex  sese  de  ensores  dedit  etjussit  quid  ad  quos  judices 
pertinent  (Lamprid,  Alex.  Se veras,  c.  33). 

7  See  Sanger’s  Hist,  of  Prostitution,  p.  <5d. 

•  Livy,  XXXIX.  8-19. 


448 


THE  COUNTLESS  COMMUNES. 


of  Drumann,  Foucart,  Wescher,  Liiders,  Mommsen,  De 
Broglie  and  others.  It  is  through  the  great  labors  of  such 
men  that  the  modern  students  of  the  labor  movements  are 
made  aware  of  what  wonders  in  the  social  problem  were 
wrought  in  antiquity.  But  their  evidence  is  nearly  all  de¬ 
rived  from  the  silent  inscriptions  upon  slabs,  urns  and  sar¬ 
cophagi  that  survive  the  corroding  vicissitudes  of  the  sad 
centuries.  In  fact  the  industry  of  the  archaeologists  may 
yet  reveal  as  valuable  contributions  to  the  science  of  soci¬ 
ology  as  the  fossil  diggers  have  revealed  to  their  branch  of 
paleontology.  It  is  now  made  certain  from  multitudes  of 
inscriptions  which  have  weathered  the  storms  of  more  than 
two  thousand  years,  that  great  numbers  of  social  organiza¬ 
tions  of  the  laboring  classes  existed  simultaneously  in  Asia 
Minor,  Egypt,  Greece  and  Italy. 

The  variety  of  names  for  them  found  on  the  relics  are 
more  attributable  to  epochs  and  languages  than  to  differ¬ 
ences  in  their  character  and  tenets  of  association.  Where 
the  Greek  was  spoken  they  were  called  after  the  term  eranosy 
meaning  a  meal  of  victuals  in  common,  or  food  for  which 
a  common  assessment  was  made  upon  members  who  enjoyed 
it  by  mutual  consent.  Thus  it  came  to  be  a  method  of  pro¬ 
curing  or  earning  the  meal — a  trade  union.  Hence  the 
eranoi  were  organizations  or  co-operations  for  the  purposes 
of  self-support;  and  partook  more  of  the  character  of  the 
community  method,  such  as  in  our  day  exhibits  itself  at  the 
Soci6t6  de  Conde  sur  Vesgre,  than  of  the  more  prevalent 
co-operative  associations,®  like  the  Equitables. 

This  term  Eranos  is  unmistakable  in  meaning.  An  oblo¬ 
quy  attaches  to  it,  pretty  much  the  same  as  to  our  word 
communism,  wherever  it  is  used  in  the  classics ;  because 
the  societies  existed  during  that  period  of  the  world’s  career 
in  which  the  sovereignty  of  the  individual  was  more  fierce 
and  intolerant  toward  the  meeker  spirit  of  mutual  help  than 
it  is  now;  for  the  eranoi  were  the  Greek  guilds.  Yet  evi¬ 
dences  are  abundant  that  such  communities  existed  in  large 
numbers ;  that  they  obtained  no  little  moral  and  pecuniary 
aid  from  outside;  that  they  were  persecuted  by  the  politi¬ 
cians,  hated  by  the  optimates,  and  were  obliged  to  assume 

*  Consult  LQders,  Die  Dionysischen  K&nstler,  Einleitend e  UebertichL,  S.  1-49. 
Versehledenheit  nnd  Auebreltung  der  Organisatlonen . 


GREEK  LABOR  UNIONS. 


449 


a  good  drill  of  veneration  for  the  g ods,  and  play  other  so¬ 
cial  as  wed  as  political  counter-tactics  to  exist. 

Another  name,  that  of  Thiasos ,  was  given  to  a  similar, 
and  it  would  appear  cotemporaneous  class  of  organization. 
In  fact  so  far  as  we  are  able  to  determine,  the  thiasoi  and 
the  eranoi  were  pretty  much  one  and  the  same  thing.  But 
as  the  term  thiasos  with  the  various  forms  of  verb  and  sub¬ 
stantive,  refers  to  demonstrations  of  joy,  such  as  marching, 
dancing,  singing  and  the  like,  in  the  open  streets,  it  appears 
they  were  one  kind  of  organization  with  two  names — that 
of  eranoi ,  the  secret  union  which  met  twice  and  sometimes 
four  times  a  month  ;  and  of  the  more  generally  known  thiasoi 
whose  members  sometimes  paraded  in  large  numbers  in  the 
open  air.10 

Mr.  Tompkins,  who  has  devoted  his  very  useful  life  to 
statistical  matters  regarding  the  Friendly  Societies  of  Great 
Britain,  is  prone  to  picture  analogies  between  the  ancient 
and  the  modern  form.  Studying  the  former  from  the  light 
he  and  others  have  rendered,  we  are  strongly  suspicious, 
because  they  were  distinct  from  the  bacchanalia  and  the 
more  ancient  erotiae,  that  they  were  unions  of  trades  whose 
tenets  involved  nearly  all  the  elements  of  the  socialists  of 
to-day,  rather  than  of  the  present  standard  of  liberty  and  de¬ 
velopment  to  be  found  in  the  Friendly  Societies  of  Great 
Britain.  According  to  Mr.  Tompkins’  list,  which  was  al¬ 
ways  official,  the  Friendly  Societies  in  1868  numbered  23, 
000,  with  an  aggregate  membership  of  1,700,000,  and  a 
capital  of  nearly  50,000,000  dollars.11  The  comparison 
therefore  is  at  least  respectable.  We  quote  from  his  pamph¬ 
let  on  Friendly  Societies  of  Antiquity : 

“Let  us  now  consider  whsrt  these  companies  were  which 
are  called  by  the  names  of  eranos  and  t/iiasos,  and  of  which 
the  following  and  other  inscriptions  have  revealed  the  num¬ 
ber  and  importance.  These  companies  were  formed  of 
members  who  met  together  to  sacrifice  to  certain  divinities 
and  to  celebrate  their  festivals  in  common  ;  besides  this  they 
assisted  those  membei3  who  fell  into  necessitous  circum¬ 
stances,  and  provided  for  their  funerals.  They  were  at  once 
religious  associations  and  friendly  societies.1*  Sometimes 

10  See  further  on  these  distinctions  in  subsequent  chapters,  also  much  re¬ 
specting  them  and  the  Jewish  and  Egyptian  cummunes. 

11  Keport  of  the  Registrar  of  Friendly  Societies  of  Gieat  Britain ,  for  the  year  1868- 

u  This  author  might  have  here  said  “  trade  unions ; "  for  numbers  of  the 


450 


THE  COUXTLESS  COMMUNES, . 


they  daringly  partook  of  a  political  and  commercial  character* 
These  private  corporations  (recognized  by  the  state),  had 
their  presiding  and  other  officers,  their  priests,  their  funds 
supplied  by  the  contributions  of  members  and  the  liberality 
of  benefactors.  They  assembled  in  their  sanctuary  and 
made  decrees.  They  were  found  in  great  numbers  in  the 
important  cities,  and  especially  in  the  maritine  ODes.  At 
Rhodes,  for  example,  there  were  the  Companions  of  the 
Sun,  the  Sons  of  Bacchus,  of  Minerva  Lindienne,  of  Jupiter 
Atabyrius,  of  Jupiter  the  Savior.  At  Athens  (or  rather  at 
the  Pi  rams),  there  were  the  Heroistes,  the  Serapiste9  or 
company  of  the  worshipers  of  the  god  Serapis,  theEranstes 
the  Orgeons  and  lastly  the  tliiasotes.”18 

Many  of  these  were  trade  unions  possessing  a  common 
fund,  the  amount  of  which  depended  upon  the  number  of 
members  who  paid  regular  contributions,  and  the  amount 
of  the  donations  that  were  given  from  wealthier  people  who 
were  in  sympathy  with  them.  There  is  plenty  of  evidence 
that  women  as  well  as  men  formed  the  membership  of  these 
societies.  Woman  took  her  stand  with  all  the  dignity  and 
the  honors  of  the  man ;  and  there  are  several  slabs  of  stone 
and  other  relics  on  which  are  inscribed  some  of  the  particu¬ 
lars  in  regard  to  the  kind  and  importance  of  the  honors 
awarded  her  for  faithfulness  and  ability  in  performing  the 
duties  of  an  executive  officer.  The  monthly  meetings  or  so¬ 
ciables  held  in  enclosed  gardens  and  groves  were  largely 
conducted  by  the  women  who  gave  the  attractive  convivial 
feature,  which  may  account  for  their  long  existence  and 
extraordinary  status  and  power,  that  enabled  them  to  do 
what  no  social  society  of  our  more  enlightened  age  is  doing 
— write  their  record  as  the  dinotherium  and  the  trilobite 
have  done,  in  the  irrefutable  argument  of  their  stone  remains 
and  inprints.  There  are  at  present  very  few  societies  of  so¬ 
cialists  of  which  we  have  any  knowledge  that  are  in  the 
habit  of  chiseling  out  their  archives  with  such  a  degree  of 
minuteness  and  upon  such  imperishable  material  as  was 
habitual  with  the  ancient  eranoi  and  sodalicia. 

It  is  true,  we  are  making  so  profound  an  impression  that 

friendly  societies  of  Great  Britain  have  become  since  the  repeal  of  the  consoir 
acy  laws  in  1824,  genuine  trade  unions  of  the  best  pattern.  During  the  exist 
»nce  of  the  cruel  law  of  Elizabeth  they  maintained  the  title  of  friendly  and 
burial  societies  almost  exactly  like  the  colleges  and  eranes. 

18  Mr.  H.  Thompkins’  pamphlet  on  the  Friendly  Societies  of  Antiquity.  Lon¬ 
don,  1867, 


WROTE  THEIR  HISTOR  T  ON  THE  STONES, .  451 


the  histories  and  printed  records  of  our  existence  and  of  our 
important  transactions  are  slowly  becoming  a  possible  thing; 
and  such  records  may  possibly  save  us  from  oblivion ;  but 
the  true  and  thorough  histriographer  of  the  labor  move¬ 
ments  of  the  world  has  a  broad  and  attractive  field — not 
yet  all  laid  open — in  the  study,  and  interpretation  of  the 
multitudes  of  reliefs,  anaglyphs,  and  other  queer  paleographs 
upon  slabs,  urns,  amphorae  and  such  objects  of  those  by-gone 
ages;  a  work  which  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  archaeologist  to 
develop  and  complete.  The  truth  is,  the  history  of  labor 
has  been  neglected  ;  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  very 
nearly  all  of  that  which  in  this  more  propitious  age  is  at¬ 
tracting  profound  consideration  by  the  wise  and  benevolent, 
has  been  gone  over  and  tried,  amid  the  vicissitudes  of  wars 
and  other  antagonisms  of  the  outside  competitive  world,  more 
than  two  thousand  years  ago. 

But  the  fact  that  their  non-  competitive  plan  failed  of  gen¬ 
eral  adoption  need  not  be  adduced  as  an  argument  against 
them.  They  seem  to  have  been  very  successful  so  far  as 
they  were  intended  to  apply.  They  were  trade  unions  for 
the  most  part  among  the  mechanics  and  laboring  people ; 
and  so  far  as  their  societies  concerned  them,  they  succeeded. 
It  had  not  become  particularly  a  broad  question.  When, 
however,  Christ  took  up  the  principle  of  community  of  in¬ 
terests  involved  in  their  tenets,  and  organized  his  system  of 
advocacy,  there  immediately  arose  upon  it  a  world-wide 
culture  and  an  opposition;  because  this  threatened  the  over¬ 
throw  of  the  competism  which  has  always  been  the  basis  of 
both  social  and  political  economy. 

That  the  communes,  called  the  ercinoi  in  Greece,  the  Gre¬ 
cian  Archipelago,  Asia  Minor  and  Egypt,  in  the  Greek 
tongue,  and  the  collegia,  sodalicia  or  coetus  in  the  Latin, 
were  the  chief  cause  and  originators  of  Christendom,  we 
can,  after  mature  reflection,  entertain  little  doubt. 

Already  faint  glimpses  of  proof  are  extant  that  the  prin¬ 
ciple  or  thesis  of  our  modern  community  of  interests,  “no 
excellence  without  unity  in  labor,”  and  that  “endless  toil 
in  collecting  good,  both  by  experiment  and  observation,” 
which  is  now  giving  preponderance  to  Aristotle’s  philosophy 
over  that  of  Plato,  is  significantly  crowding  Christianity 
out  from  the  impractical  self-denying  school  of  St.  Jerome, 
back  into  its  primeval  socialism,  or  non-eompetism,  in  the 


452 


THE  COUNTLESS  COMMUNES, 


defense  of  which  Jesus,  Nestor,  and  a  thousand  others  have 
suffered. 

Fortunately  for  us,  the  ancient  trade  unions  were  in  the 
habit  not  only  of  writing  their  minutes  and  preserving  them 
in  their  own  archives,  in  each  state  where  they  existed  but 
many  of  the  great  events  were  further  inscribed  either  in 
alto,  demi  or  basso-relievo;  and  many  times  this  was  done 
on  marble  or  good  blue  or  sand-stone,  which  has  withstood 
all  the  erosions  of  time. 

In  some  places,  as  at  the  Piraeus  the  ancient  seaport  of 
Athens,  in  the  Isle  of  Sautorin,  in  Rhodes  and  in  Asia  Minor, 
the  societies  were  very  numerous.  It  is  a  well  known  fact 
that  during  the  period  of  the  existence  of  these  nations, 
ranging  about  58  years  before  Christ  down  to  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  the  Alexandrian  archives  by  Theophilus  and  St. 
Cyril,  about  A.  D.  414,  the  laws  against  these  poor  people 
and  their  organizations  where  almost  whimsically  severe. 
M.  Renan  says  of  the  Roman  communes,  that  there  was 
still  less  favor  here  given  the  disinherited  classes  than  in 
other  countries.  During  the  Roman  Republic,  in  the  “  af¬ 
fair  of  the  Bacchanales,”  186  years  before  Christ,  the  policy 
of  Rome  on  the  subject  of  these  associations  had  first  been 
proclaimed.14 

It  was  the  nature  of  the  Roman  people  to  cleave  to  fra¬ 
ternizing  organizations,  and  especially  to  those  of  a  religi¬ 
ous  character.  This  kind  of  association,  however,  was  hate¬ 
ful  to  tho  patricians — the  dispensers  of  the  political  power 
— who  recognized  the  family  and  the  state  in  actual  force, 
as  the  correct  social  group.  These  patricians  took  the 
minutest  precautions  against  allowing  the  plebians  the  scope 
of  developing  into  a  counter  power.  They  had  to  be  scru¬ 
pulously  authorized  before  they  could  become  an  associa¬ 
tion — probably  by  charter.  They  could  not  appoint  a  per¬ 
manent  president  or  magister  eacrorum.  The  number  of 
their  members  had  to  be  limited.  The  meanest  restrictions 
were  enacted  against  their  accumulating  too  large  a  fund 
for  their  commune.  Similar  peevishness  continued  against 
the  disinherited  classes  during  the  existence  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  The  archives  of  the  law  contained  every  imagin¬ 
able  provision  for  the  repression  of  their  growth 

14  So  we  find  the  great  social  wars  or  tne  reoellions  of  slaves,  assisted  by  thu 
unemployed  original  inhabitants,  to  have  raged  from  about  this  same  period. 


NAMES  AND  DUTIES  OF  OFFICERS . 


463 


M.  Renan  further  asserts  that  the  Syrians  gathered  into 
these  societies  inoculating  them  with  opinions  which  the 
patricians  vainly  sought  to  destroy.  The  Revue  Archeolo- 
gique  says  that  there  was  a  w  contest  of  opinions  between 
the  communes  and  the  patricians,’’  which  is  very  natural; 
since  the  whole  gist  of  the  former  was  to  do  away  with 
competism  and  the  system  of  intermediary  commission  men 
depended  upon,  by  the  patricians,  as  a  principle  for  their 
very  existence. 

The  Greek  societies  are  known  by  inscriptions  now  in  the 
Archaeological  Museum  at  Athens,  to  have  had  the  follow¬ 
ing  officers: 

1.  Three  presiding  officers — of  both  sexes :  (a)  the  presi¬ 
dent  (prostates),  male;  and  ( b )  the  guardian  in  charge  ( pro - 
eranistria ),  female.  They  had  also,  (c)  a  president  of  finance 
(archeranistes). 

2.  A  stewardess  or  housewife  ( tamia ). 

3.  A  manager  or  trustee;  of  whom,  doubtless  each  era- 
nos  or  union  had  more  than  one  ( epimeletes ).  There  are 
evidences  that  the  functions  of  this  important  office  were 
divided  among  the  men  and  women  of  the  union. 

4.  The  recording  secretary  or  scribe  who  wrote  the  min¬ 
utes  for  the  archives  ( grammateus ). 

5.  Lawyers  (sundikoi),  whose  exclusive  business  was  to 
watch  and  defend  the  society  and  its  members,  individually 
as  well  as  collectively,  against  the  persecution  of  the  outside 
competitive  world  which  was  always  too  prone  to  enforce 
any  one  of  the  many  repressive  and  intolerant  laws  and 
measures  above  referred  to,  against  them. 

6.  The  manager  of  religious  rites  ( hieropoios ). 

7.  Priest,  one  who  attended  to  the  religious  ceremonies 
or  rites  ( hierokeryx ). 

A  glance  at  ancient  mythology  will  show  that  a  great 
many  isms,  creeds  or  denominations  existed  in  hierarchical 
affairs;  and  that  the  power  of  each  was  nearly  coequal  so 
far  as  political  and  social  status  or  respectability  was  con¬ 
cerned.  All  seem  to  have  been  shielded  by  the  law  of  the 
land.  So  the  communes  took  refuge  under  the  favors 
of  religious  discipline,  and  are  known  to  have  been  obliged 
to  do  so  to  keep  themselves  reconciled  to  their  persecutors. 
By  these  tactics  and  by  the  smartness  of  their  own  lawyers, 
who  gave  their  time  to  the  labor  of  love,  they  kept  the  hoa- 


454 


THE  COUNTLESS  COMMUNES. 


tile  and  restringent,  clauses  of  the  law  a  “  dead  lettei,"  in 
spite  of  the  patricians  and  optimal es.  M.  Renan  and 
others  declare  that  there  were  radical  “  differences  of  opin¬ 
ion  ”  on  the  part  of  the  unions  all  through  those  centuries. 
The  truth  is,  that  then,  as  now*  their  very  existence  was  an 
organized  socialistic  state,  though  of  a  low  order. 

We  find  that  some  of  the  eranoi  or  Greek-speaking  com¬ 
munities  worshiped,  and  even  dedicated  themselves  to  one 
god  w  ith  its  peculiar  litany,  some  to  another.  Here  is  a 
translation  from  the  very  slab  or  “  stone  tablet  ”  referred  to 
in  the  command  of  the  decree,  which  strangely  enough,  has 
survived  all  the  ages  since  the  beginning  of  the  third  cen¬ 
tury  before  Christ.  On  looking  it  over,  who  shall  doubt  that 
this  was  a  great  and  perhaps  wealthy  community,  in  every 
way  respectable?  It  was  dedicated  to  the  mythical  god, 
Jupiter,  and  chronicles  the  fact  clearer  than  the  recusant 
historian  could  have  done  upon  papyrus,  that  it  was  an 
honorable  and  responsible  body,  and  in  nowise  allied  to 
the  bawdy  erotomania  that  inspired  the  orgies  of  earlier 
origin  and  that  formed  the  subject  matter  of  Anacreon’s 
dithyrambics  and  the  voluptuous  bacchanalian  ditties  of 
Pindar.  This  translation  is  clipped  verbatim  from  Mr. 
Henry  Tompkin’s  pamphlet.15  “  It  has  been  proposed: 
seeing  that  Menis,  son  of  Mnistheus,  of  Heraclea,  is  full 
of  good  will  toward  the  thiasotes,  and  of  zeal  for  the  tem¬ 
ple,  that  at  present,  being  treasurer,  appointed  under  the 

archontate  of - he  has  fulfilled  that  charge  with  zeal 

and  honesty;  that  he  has  finished  the  portico  and  the  front 
of  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Lebraundos  in  a  manner  worthy 
of  the  god;  that  he  has  managed  the  common  funds  with 
honesty  and  justice,  and  that  to  all  the  thiasotes  he  has 
been  irreproachable  both  before  and  after  taking  office  as 
treasurer ;  that  he  has  not  hesitated  to  add  his  own  money 
toward  the  expenses  of  the  temple,  showing  thus,  in  an 
evident  manner  the  good  will  that  he  has  for  the  thiasotes, 
and  that  he  has  fulfilled  the  sacerdotal  office  in  a  manner 
worthy  of  the  god.  For  all  these  things  the  thiasotes 
have  decreed  to  award  a  vote  of  thanks  ( euloaium )  to 
Menis,  son  of  Mnistheus,  of  Heraclea  ;  to  crown  him  with 
a  chaplet  of  foliage ;  to  consecrate,  in  a  part  of  the  tem¬ 
ple  where  it  will  be  best  seen,  his  likeness,  painted  on  » 

u  For  the  original  See  Rev  Atrheologique  Paper  by  M.  Weecher. 


SPECIMENS  OF  GREEK  COMMUNES 


piece  of  wood,  according  to  law,  in  order  to  show  to  all 
those  who  wish  to  prove  their  zeal  toward  the  temple  what 
honors  they  may  obtain,  each  one  according  to  the  good 
he  may  be  able  to  do  for  the  thiasotes;  and  to  engrave 
this  decree  on  a  stone  tablet,  and  to  place  it  in  the  tem¬ 
ple  of  the  god.” 

We  have  proved  in  our  own  mind  that  the  thiasoi  whose 
members,  the  thiasotes ,  paraded  in  the  open  streets,  “  danc¬ 
ing  in  honor  of  the  gods,”  were  identical  with  the  secret 
eranoi  who  met  much  oftener  to  enjoy  their  meals,  con- 
vivials,  discussions  and  social  pleasures  in  common  and  to 
contrive  for  each  other  situations  to  work.  The  eranoi 
were  much  less  known,  though  their  purpose  was  far 
more  significant.16  They  met  from  two  to  four  times  a 
month  to  transact  business  and  to  discuss  their  “  differ¬ 
ence  of  opinion.”  It  was  here  that  the  above  mentioned 
officers  felt  the  responsibility  of  their  functions.  The 
treasurer  was  of  so  much  importance  that  he  was  called 
president  of  finance.  Doubtless  the  male  president  (pros¬ 
trates)  was  considered  to  outrank  the  female  president 
(; proeranistia ),  if  indeed  the  aristocratic  idea  of  ranks  was 
permitted  to  enter  the  commune.  The  number  and  im¬ 
portance  of  the  offices  seem  to  have  resembled  those  of 
the  Patrons  of  Husbandry,  or  Knights  of  Labor. 

We  are  unable,  as  yet,  to  determine  exactly  what  class 
of  women  it  was  who  shared  the  communistic  proletarian 
societies  of  Greece  and  the  Greek-speaking  inhabitants 
under  trade  union  laws  during  the  power  of  the  Greek 
philosophies,  but  are  of  opinion  that  they  were  of  the  two 
most  respectable  classes  recognized  by  law.  It  is  quite 
certain  that  their  movements  at  Athens  were  watched  by 
the  Areopagus  or  court  of  Mars,  whose  jurisdiction  was 
over  criminal  cases  and  public  order  and  decency.  The 
two  classes  were  the  wives  of  mechanics,  their  daughters, 
and  the  aulitrides  who  made  their  living  by  playing  the 
flute.  It  is  almost  certain  that  the  wonderful,  coexistant 
class  of  women  known  as  the  hetairai  also  participated  in 
these  Eranoi  as  members.  But  to  prove  that  the  oule- 
trides  frequented  them  we  give  a  translation  of  a  Greek 


w  Athenaeue,  Deipnosophistai,  VIII.  “  Epavoi  Si  cic iv  ai  anb  rwr  cn  n$a\\on*- 
imv  fiaayujyai,  an6  tov  avvepav  Kal  avp-cfrepeiv  fKacrTov*  k oAelrtt  6  au*o<  «ui  (pavo) 
r ai  dLaaos  «ai  oi  avviovres  epavurrai  /eat  avydcaa^roie 


456 


THE  COUNTLESS  COMMUNES 


inscription  cut  in  marble,  edged  with  bas  reliefs.  It  is  of 
the  Roman  epoch  and  is  from  the  Isle  of  Santorin  in  the 
Grecian  Archipelago,  not  far  from  Nio.  As  Santorinwas 
an  agricultural  country  they  might  have  been  mostly  cul¬ 
tivators.  No  matter  how  repressive  and  intolerant  the 
laws,  they  could  not  disband.  It  is  a  slab  first  observed 
at  Athens  by  the  Archaeologist  M.  Wescher,  in  which  the 
eranoi  fairly  unveil  their  secrecy  and  come  out  in  their 
own  name.  Before  giving  the  rendering  of  the  inscrip¬ 
tion,  however,  we  beg  to  paint  as  we  conceive  it,  a  picture 
of  ancient  competitive  life  which  formed  the  basis  of 
Greek  society.  It  ran  to  the  extent  of  gambling;  and  the 
ethics  of  society  may  be  said  to  have  been  fixed  by  law  and 
public  opinion  at  little  higher  than  the  gamblers’  code. 
Society  outside  the  eranoi  and  the  thiasoi  was  a  vast 
gambling  hell;  and  the  long  existence  of  the  associations, 
we  can  account  for  in  no  other  way  than  that  they  in  their 
secret  recesses  possessed  a  charmed  circle.  It  was  the 
infinite  love  that  emanates  from  the  infinite  difference 
marked  by  the  gulf  yawning  between  competitive  frater¬ 
nal  life.  ”  The  poor  Greek  working  people  must  have  felt 
all  this  difference. 

Let  anyone  imagine  himself  obliged  to  contemplate  the 
fashionable  logic  of  a  gambling  den:  A  number  of  peo¬ 
ple  sit  round  a  table,  each  with  his  pile  of  gold,  the  sum 
of  which  is  the  stake  involved.  There  is  skill  there. 
There  is  also  genuine  talent.  Brilliant  aptitudes  in  one, 
in  the  choice  of  cards  or  dice ;  intuition  in  another,  to 
catch  and  forestall  a  niggling  thought  and  checkmate  a 
winning  deal ;  shrewdness  in  a  third  at  the  study  of  fea¬ 
tures  and  in  the  reading  of  their  inadvertent  language; 
and  in  a  fourth,  tact  to  swoop  in  the  sum  of  the  aces 
against  the  competitors.  There  is  no  mutual  adaptation 
of  these  natural  gifts  to  a  common  good.  These  are  the 
non-productive  adornments  in  the  “code’s  ”  diplomacy.  In 
the  usages  of  the  gambler  opinion  has  fixed  a  sort  of 
reckless  general  law  that  acts  as  each  gambler’s  guide ; 
and  to  obey  this  law  is  to  conform  to  the  ethics  of  a  code 
which  is  the  competitor’s  idea  of  duty.  The  duty  of  each, 

17  Aristotle  lived  apparently  in  daily  contact  witn  these  communes  and  seems 
to  have  been  influenced  by  them  .  .  .  evio t  Si  kowuvmv  Si  t/Sov Soxovai  ytv * 
3a i,  dLaauiTuiv  <ai  epai'icrrcov  avrai  yap  &v<rias  evttca  /cai  auvoveriat.  Ethics,  VIII.  II 


GAMBLING  HELLS  OF  COMPETITION.  457 


whether  in  the  exigency  of  the  winning,  or  of  the  losing 
game,  is  to  behave  with  decency.  Such  are  the  ethics  at 
the  gambling  stakes  and  each  must  conform. 

The  excitement  of  the  competitive  game  goes  on.  The 
lookers-on  forget  self,  home  and  duty  in  their  admiration 
of  the  contestants’  skill.  Their  variety  of  method,  their 
quivering  versatility,  their  genius,  bold  of  one,  delicate  of 
another,  exhilarate  as  they  amaze.  But  when  the  one 
more  skilled  in  gaming  or  more  favored  in  fortuity,  sweeps 
the  stakes  and  stalks  off  in  triumph  with  the  gold  of  his 
helpless  neighbors,  there  must  come  a  reaction  of  feeling, 
though  the  rules  of  the  gambling  table  require  resigna¬ 
tion.  The  defeated  need  not  try  to  hide  discomfiture.  A 
hungry  wife  and  children,  blighted  hopes,  baffled  plans 
and  chagrin,  beget  despair.  They  are  the  conjurers  of  dis¬ 
trust,  jealousy,  vengeance,  hate,  suicide  Even  the  winner 
dies  in  misery;  for  a  little  selfish  ecstasy  adds  nothing 
to  the  sum  of  a  life’s  possibilities  and  joys.  He  is  often 
the  next  victim  in  the  shifting  vicissitudes  of  the  trade. 

Now  this  is  a  fair  picture  of  that  hell  which  constituted 
ancient  society.  The  household,  the  shambles  of  volup¬ 
tuous  commerce  and  of  deal,  the  judiciary  and  the  war- 
spirit  were  so  many  sheols  of  licensed  competism  recking 
with  a  virus  of  the  gambler’s  code  and  intolerant  of  this 
socialism  of  the  poor.  Unfortunately  it  is  too  exact  a  pic¬ 
ture  of  the  maudlin  present ;  but  the  present  we  are  not 
dealing  with. 

Society  was  a  vast  concern  in  which  fashions,  means 
and  fine  things  were  huckstered  and  raffled  from  hand  to 
hand ;  and  then  as  now,  the  working  classes  or  proletariat 
were  the  sensitive  target  which  every  club  of  misguided 
genius  bruised  and  imbruted. 

The  discovery,  then,  of  unquestionable  proof  that  there 
existed  comtemporaneously  with  this  outside  state  of 
things  an  order  of  human  association  whose  code  of  ethics, 
or  whose  accepted  opinion  of  duty,  one  to  another,  was 
the  antithesis  of  this ;  whose  rule  of  home  and  labor  was 
based  deep  in  that  love  and  mutual  protection  which  af¬ 
terwards  became  the  doctrine  of  salvation  as  proclaimed 
by  a  greater  teacher,18  is  a  triumph  glorius  and  incalcula- 

18  Plato,  Aristotle  and  Socrates  were  all  deeply  touched  by  the  brotherly  love 
of  the  innumerable  eranists  whose  works  though  humble  were  followed  by  them 


468 


THE  COUNTLESS  COMMUNES. 


ble  to  the  struggling,  disjointed  love  of  the  labor  move¬ 
ment  to-day.  The  fragment  at  Athens  referred  to  is  a 
piece  of  bine  Hymettian  marble  with  little  border  work. 
The  inscription  is  in  plain  Attic  Greek  of  the  Aristotelian 
epoch,  and  its  translation  from  the  Revue  Arch6ologique, 
is  ns  follows: 

“  By  a  rulable  and  just  administration  of  the  common 
fund  of  money  belonging  to  the  community  of  eranistai, 
and  having  ever  conducted  himself  with  kindness  and 
with  honesty;  and  as  he  has  righteously  husbanded  the 
funds  successively  paid  by  the  eranistai  themselves,  as 
well  as  the  annual  subscription,  according  to  the  law  of 
the  eranos;  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that  in  everything 
else  he  still  continues  to  show  integrity  to  the  oath  which 
he  swore  to  the  eranistai,  therefore  Hail  Alcmeon ! 

u  The  community  of  the  eranistai  rejoice  to  praise 
Alcmeon,  son  of  Iheon,  a  stranger  who  has  been  natur¬ 
alized — their  president  of  finance  (archer anistes);  and  do 
crown  him  with  a  chaplet  of  foliage  because  of  his  faith¬ 
fulness  and  good  will  to  them.  They  are  moreover  re¬ 
joiced  and  praise  the  trustees  ( epimaletai )  and  also  the 
hieropoioi  of  Jupiter  the  Savior,  and  of  Hercules,  and  of 
the  Savior  of  the  gods.  And  they  crown  each  of  them 
with  the  wreath  of  honor  because  of  their  virtue  and  their 
lively  interest  in  the  community  of  the  eranistai” 

The  stone  is  here  broken,  leaving  us  in  the  dark  as  to 
the  exact  date  of  this  interesting  relic.  The  principle 
however,  upon  which  this  eranos  was  conducted,  accept¬ 
ing  the  signification  given  this  word  by  lexicographers 
and  writers  of  the  adverse  school,  was  communism — means 
taxed  from  a  common  membership  for  mutual  support. 
This  settled,  we  next  ask:  did  such  an  experiment  thrive  ? 
The  above  inscription  is  full  of  praises  and  rejoicing  over 
its  success.  Then  if  it  did  succeed,  and  if  in  conjunction 
with  it,  it  is  made  clear  that  the  less  secret  jubilees  of  the 
thiasoi  furnished  means  out  of  the  same  well-husbanded 
fund,  for  the  sweet  convivials,  and  the  dance,  to  the  fam¬ 
ous  music  of  the  female  flute-players,  did  not  this  “  com¬ 
munity  of  the  eranistai  *'  greatly  augment  for  the  “  disin¬ 
herited  classes,”  the  means  of  happiness  and  virtue? 

all  Liiders  commenting,  quotes  Socrates  from  Xenophon,  Conversationes  VUI. 
“  Wir  siuil  ja  alle  Thiasoten  deses  gottes.’’  This  passage  gives  stong  evidence 
that  Socrates  was  a  member  of  a  commune. 


SOCRATES  A  MEMBER  OF  A  COMMUNE.  459 


These  are  important  conjectures  coming  from  the  un¬ 
written  mists  of  the  finest  of  the  world’s  ages  of  antiquity. 
Let  the  ethnologist  and  the  paleontologist  divest  them¬ 
selves  of  bias,  and  with  these  new  skeletons  of  ancient 
history  remodel  and  reproduce  an  ethologic  anatomy  of 
these  two  great  rivals  for  power — individualism  and  com¬ 
munal  love.  For  if  the  desired  means  of  happiness  was 
procured  through  this  one  experiment  of  whose  relics  we 
have  given  a  rendering,  then  it  is  evident  by  the  many 
other  similar  inscriptions  that  a  thousand  such  microcosms 
embellished  the  morals  and  gladdened  the  hearts  of  slaves 
and  outcasts. 

These  microcosms  of  a  far  future  society  must  not,  how¬ 
ever,  be  supposed  to  have  been  as  sweeping  or  as  pure  in 
their  radicalism  as  some  that  are  developing  at  the  present 
time ;  for  it  must  be  remembered  that  though  the  ignor¬ 
ance  of  the  present  age  is  averse  to  the  implanting  of  a 
system  which  means  introversion  and  revolution  of  com¬ 
petitive  disassociation,  yet  we  possess  at  least  the  boon  of 
tolerance  which  was  almost  utterly  denied  the  struggling 
poor  of  those  times. 

According  to  the  best  information  to  be  had  regarding 
inscriptions  that  are  resuscitating  the  history  of  the  an¬ 
cient  proletaries,  the  societies  called  the  eranoi  and  the 
thiasoi  were  by  no  means  confined  to  the  Hellenic  Penin¬ 
sula  and  the  Ionian  and  Grecian  Archipelagoes.  Similar 
societies  are  known  to  have  existed  both  on  the  continent 
of  Asia  and  of  Africa.  Mommsen,  Orelli,  Bockh  and  other 
archaeologists,  in  their  Latin  works  of  Descriptiones  Re - 
liquarum,  have  filled  thousands  of  folio  pages  with  sketches 
of  all  sorts  of  paleographs  which  are  fac-similes  of  inscrip¬ 
tions,  monograms,  escutcheons  and  many  kinds  of  hiero¬ 
glyphic  and  anaglypliic  gravery  and  embossing  in  stone 
and  metal.  These  curious  things  are  being  dug  up  in 
different  parts  of  Europe,  Asia  and  Africa,  wherever  an¬ 
cient  history  speaks  of  the  doings  of  men. 

Great  numbers  are  described  that  have  come  from  Dal¬ 
matia,  the  rivers  and  plains  of  Austria,  Hungary  and  the 
Kranish  provinces.  They  exist  in  countries  once  occu¬ 
pied  by  the  Armenians,  Phoenicians  and  Chaldeans;  and 
as  it  is  now  becoming  apparent  that  the  most  correct  phi¬ 
losophies  of  the  Alexandrians  and  Athenians  were  first 


460 


THE  COUNTLESS  COMMUNES. 


inspired  by  Indians  of  the  east,  it  is  possible  that  great 
revelations  are  yet  forthcoming  from  the  Hindoo  school, 
of  which  the  Sankhya  Kapila  was  the  inspiring  oracle. 
But  however  this  mav  be — whether  Buddhism  was,  or  was 
not  the  idiosyncrasy  that  germinated  the  every-growing 
schism  among  dialecticians  of  all  succeeding  ages,  it  mat¬ 
ters  little. 

One  thing  is  certain  in  our  mind :  that  the  societies  of 
self-help  among  the  proletaries  have  uniformly  followed 
the  grouping,  self-teaching,  perpiatetic  method  of  Aristo¬ 
tle  and  Kapila,  while  their  competitive  enemies  and  per¬ 
secutors  have  followed  the  dreamy,  non-practical  Olym¬ 
pus-beclouded  generalities  of  Plato.  The  communities 
always  worked  well  under  Numa,  Solon,  Jesus  and  Nestor, 
but  always  suffered  under  Lycurgus,  Appius  Claudius, 
Caesar  and  Cyril.  If  the  strange  and  newly  unearthed 
library  of  Asshurbanipal,  who  was  emperor  of  the  Assyr¬ 
ians  a  thousand  years  before  Christ,  is  ever  scanned  in 
a  non-prejudicial  spirit,  its  ideographs  and  its  history  of 
their  systems  of  nomenclature,  computation  and  collec¬ 
tion  may  be  found  suggestive  of  similar  doings. 

We  have  already  said  something  concerning  the  rules 
and  by-laws  of  the  societies,  which  by  the  marble  tablet 
whereon  their  records  are  graven,  are  known  to  have 
existed.  Asa  general  thing  these  decrees  and  regulations 
are  made  on  the  stones  that  still  honor  some  of  the  offi¬ 
cers.  Although  the  evident  object  of  each  of  these  or¬ 
ganizations  was  to  enlarge  the  means  of  happiness  of  the 
members  by  providing  liberties  for  them  through  the  as¬ 
sociative  sphere  of  the  collectivity,  and  may  be  said  on 
this  account  to  have  been  temporal  in  their  objects,  yet 
they  all  partook  strongly  of  some  religious  faith  incul¬ 
cated  at  the  services  of  the  gods  in  the  temples. 

Some  writers  upon  the  subject  are  convinced  that  they 
resembled  the  old  semi-religious  guilds  of  trade  in  Eng¬ 
land.  They  also  intimate  that  like  the  continental  guilds 
for  a  similar  object,  connected  with  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  they  seem  to  have  been  under  the  patronage  of 
a  tutelary  saint,  and  that  under  this  tutelage  they  some¬ 
times  founded  industrial,  commercial  and  maratime  cor¬ 
porations.  Sometimes  they  made  it  a  specialty  to  aid  each 
other  in  acquiring  a  profession.  Our  own  opinion  is,  that 


FORM  OF  THE  MEETINGS. 


401 


they  were  a  genuine  type  of  the  trade  union.19  The  evi¬ 
dences  of  this  are  many ;  and  it  is  no  argument  against 
the  position  if  they  are  found  to  have  been  religious. 

The  objections  will  be,  that  they  opened  their  sessions 
with  prayer,  and  that  they  admitted  women  in  large  num¬ 
bers.  But  some  of  our  own  trade  unions  undergo  forms 
similar  to  prayer  and  Bible  reading.  As  to  their  having 
had  women  as  members  it  only  proves  that  they  were 
trade  unions  of  a  higher,  more  long-lived  and  a  more  suc¬ 
cessful  development  than  these  of  the  present  day ;  and 
this  brings  us  to  the  sad  reflection  that  with  all  the  boast 
of  modern  trade  unionists  and  all  the  good  they  are  do¬ 
ing,  and  with  all  their  philosophy  and  practical  forcing  of 
the  true  political  economy  upon  governments,  they  still 
fail  to  equal  the  judgment  of  the  trade  unionists  of  Greece, 
who  based  their  associations  upon  co-operation  for  peace 
ful,  rather  than  co-operation  for  aggressive  self  help. 
Another  resemblance  to  the  trade  unions  is  seen  in  their 
extreme  secrecy. 

“  The  meetings  of  these  pre-Christian  societies  opened 
with  prayer ;  after  which  came  the  general  business.  The 
place  at  which  they  were  held  was  called  the  synod,  or 
sometimes  the  Synagogue,  and  the  assembly  was  abso¬ 
lutely  secret — no  stranger  could  be  admitted,  and  a  severe 
code  maintained  order  thereat.  They  were  held,  it  ap¬ 
pears,  in  enclosed  gardens  surrounded  with  porticos,  or 
piazzas  or  little  arbors,  in  the  middle  of  which  the  altar 
of  sacrifice  was  erected.  The  officers  made  the  candidates 
3or  membership  submit  to  a  sort  of  examination,  and  they 
had  to  certify  that  they  were  ‘holy,  pious  and  good.’ 
There  was  in  these  little  confraternities,  during  the  two 
or  three  centuries  that  preceded  the  Christian  era,  a 
movement  which  was  almost  as  varied  as  that  which  pro¬ 
duced  in  the  middle  ages  so  many  religious  orders  and 
so  many  sub-divisions  of  these  orders.  Very  many  have 
been  counted  in  the  single  island  of  Rhodes,  of  which 
several  bear  the  names  of  their  founders  or  of  their  re¬ 
formers.  Several  of  these  confraternities,  especially  that 
of  Bacchus,  had  sublime  and  elevated  doctrines ;  and  en¬ 
deavored  with  a  good  will  to  give  to  mankind  some  oon- 

i#  The  reasons  for  their  being  often  religious  and  borrowing  gods  or  tuto 
•arj  deities  are  explained  in  our  chapter  ou  the  Roman  trade  anions,  q.  v. 


462 


THE  COUNTLESS  COMMUNES, 


eolation.  If  there  still  remained  in  the  Greek  world  any 
love,  any  piety,  any  religious  morality,  it  was  ,owing  to 
the  liberty  granted  to  such  private  religious  doctrines. 
The  doctrines  competed  in  some  measure  with  the  official 
religion,  the  decline  of  which  became  more  evident  day 
by  day.”80 

But  it  must  not  be  inferred  because  the  eranoi,  or  Greek¬ 
speaking  unions  took  the  name  of  the  particular  god  they 
venerated,  that  they  were  exclusively  religious. 

The  archaeologist,  Hamilton,  has  produced  fac-similes 
of  inscriptions  on  slabs  that  were  found  on  the  shores  of 
the  Gulf  of  Symi.  The  translation  of  one  runs  thus: 

“Alexander,  of  Cephalonia,  has  been  honored  with  the 
gift  of  a  crown  of  gold,  and  also  Nisa,  his  virtuous  wife, 
of  Cos.  This  honor  is  given  by  the  Adoniastes,  Aphro- 
diastes  and  the  Asclepiastes.  Epaphrodite  and  his  wife, 
by  wish  of  the  Heroistes  and  of  the  Aeaciastes,  have  also 
been  honored  with  a  golden  crown.” 

These  Adoniastes,  Aphrodiastes,  Asclepiastes,  etc.,  were 
eranoi ,  whose  union  was,  on  account  of  the  peculiar  religi¬ 
ous  notions  of  the  members  and  of  the  country,  dedicated 
respectively  to  the  gods  Adonis,  Aphrodite,  Esculapia, 
etc.  Another  inscription  taken  from  Ross’s  Inscriptiones 
Greques ,21  is  also  very  interesting  as  proof  that  these  so¬ 
cieties  were  usually  dedicated  to  the  popular  gods  of  the 
mythic  hierarchy  of  Mount  Olympus. 

It  is  valuable  as  a  proof  of  the  general  position  assumed, 
on  account  of  its  bold  mention  of  union  and  confraternity 
thus  showing  that  it  belonged  to  the  eranian  and  thiasian 
school  of  co-operation  or  trade  unionism.  It  is  from  Rhodes, 
and  is  somewhat  defaced.  Here  is  the  rendering  as  given 
in  Mr.  Tompkins’  review:  “*  *  *  crowned  with  a  crown  of 
gold  by  the  community  of  Jupiter  Xenos,  the  Dionysiates 
Chaeremoniens,  as  well  as  by  the  Panatheniastes  and  the 
******  crowned  with  a  crown  of  gold  by  the  Soteri- 
astes  (wrorshipers  of  the  Soter,  or  Messiah,  the  confraternity 
of  Jupiter  Xenos,  and  that  of  Minerva  Lindienne,  followers 
of  Caius,  crowned  with  a  crown  of  foliage  by  the  commu¬ 
nity  of  Jupiter  Atabyrien  and  the  Agathodaemoniastes  Phi- 
Loniens,  as  well  as  by  the  community  of  Dionysiastes  Cluere- 
moeiens  and  by  that  of  Appollo.” 

M  Tompkins,  Friendly  Societies  of  Antiquity.  *  Researches  in  Asia  Minor 


MANAGED  BY  WOMEN . 


463 


This  date  M  in  the  year  178 v  is  supposed  to  mean  the 
178th  year  of  the  existence  of  this  union.  Here  we  have, 
in  the  midst  of  the  lady  members  of  this  old  and  probably 
rich  and  respectable  eranos ,  or  union  and  at  the  public  feast 
or  monthly  sociable  in  the  enclosed  garden  that  always  dis¬ 
tinguished  the  open  thiasoi  from  the  secret  business  meet¬ 
ing  of  the  eranoiy  a  flute-player;  in  all  probability  one  of  the 
famous auletrides  whose  charms  are  celebrated  by  Alciphron, 
Athenams  and  Theopompus;  and  of  whom  a  writer  in  his 
work  on  prostitution,  unconsciously  intimates  that  they 
were  abandons22  and  would  doubtless  construe  it  so  as  to 
make  this  feast  no  nobler  than  the  callipygian  games,  which 
though  unfrequented  by  men  must  have  been,  of  course, 
*  scandalous.’*  May  not  anything  be  scandalous  when  re¬ 
garded  in  a  censorious  and  uncharitable  light.  But  this 
feast  of  the  Communists  described  was  nothing  of  the  sort. 

This  invaluable  memento  is  in  good  care  and  preservation 
in  the  museum  at  Athens.  On  the  bas-relief  are  these  sug¬ 
gestive  figures:  A  god  and  a  goddess  in  an  enclosed  garden. 
It  is  Cybile  the  Phrygian  goddess  who  sits  with  her  head 
crowned.  In  front  of  her  crouches  a  lion  ?  The  god  is 
Apollo  in  a  flowing  robe  and  in  a  standing  attitude.  He 
has  a  salver  ( patera )  in  one  hand  and  a  l^re  in  the  other. 
There  is  a  priestess  or  proeanistria  standing,  and  a  musi¬ 
cian  or  auletrid  is  playing  the  flute.”  A  lamb  for  the  feast 
is  in  the  arms  of  a  young  man.  Under  this  is  the  inscrip¬ 
tion  of  which  the  following  is  the  translation. 

“  Stratonice,  daughter  of  Menecrates,  is  crowned  by  the 
members,  men  and  women,  of  this  thiasos.  In  the  year  178 
she  (Stratonice)  was  female  president  of  the  club  ( proeran - 
t stria),  a  crown  of  foliage  is  decreed  her  and  a  marble  tablet 
ornamented  with  banderoles  to  honor  her  publio  proclama¬ 
tion  in  the  assembly  of  Jupiter  in  houor  of  ner  virtue.” 

It  is  not  only  interesting  but  extremely  useful  as  an  ex¬ 
ample  for  the  guidance  of  future  society,  that  we  be  made 
acquainted  with  some  of  the  inner  and  unrecorded  life  of 
antiquity.  The  same  turbulent  warlike  millions  swarmed 
the  cities  and  thoroughfares  then,  as  now.  The  same  unor¬ 
ganized  and  inequitable  methods  of  production  and  appor- 

®  Stingers,  History  of  Prostitution,  p.  46. 

•2  See  also  Tafel  11.  Luders,  Die  Ditmytimhm  KOusi^r.  Explanation  of  the 
plates,  S.  10-11. 


464 


THE  COUNTLESS  COMMUNES. 


tionment.  The  same  egoism  and  sacrifice  of  neighbor  for 
aggrandizement  of  self,  and  the  same  intolerance  and  big¬ 
otry  in  prevailing  fait  hs  that  inspire  the  competing  Muscovite 
Russians  against  the  Rural  Solidarities,  the  Mennonities  and 
the  Dutchobors  to  day — the  same  selfishness  that  makes 
man  hate  man,  and  church  bate  church  wherever  we  go. 
In  this  prodigious  whirlpool  of  self-serving  negativeness  and 
ignorance — the  painful,  tiresome  desert  through  which  all 
proletarian  humanity  plods,  it  is  gratifying  to  discover  that 
a  great  counter  element  once  existed  with  organizations 
based  upon  that  community  of  equal  interests  which  is  fund¬ 
amentally  revolutionizing  the  policies  of  our  own  brilliant, 
but  depraved  and  selfish  century. 

The  specimen  adduced  was  a  festival  of  an  eranos — it  was 
the  thiasos  itself,  and  a  glance  at  Liddell  will  satisfy  the 
skeptic  that  it  was  a  society  of  poor,  persecuted  people,  who 
agreed  to  assess  each  other  in  common  for  their  daily  food 
and  their  monthly  convivials ;  and  the  proof  that  these  poor 
girls  were  sometimes  members  greatly  intensifies  the  inter¬ 
est  in  them.  Besides,  it  is  a  known  fact  that  among  these 
musical  trades  unionists  were  some  of  the  most  beautiful  and 
intelligent  people  the  world  ever  produced.  It  was  not 
considered  prostitution  in  those  days  to  do  what  they  did. 
The  stei  n  philosopher  Zeno,  hero  of  Stoicism,  fell  desper¬ 
ately  in  love  with  one;  and  if  we  are  to  believe  Athenceus 
was  ready  to  defend  his  love  with  the  antics  of  a  madman. 
This  was  after  he  had  vainly  insulted  her  beoau-e  she  came 
to  him  for  protection. 


CHAPTER  XXTL 


THE  ANCIENT  BANNER. 

INCALCULABLY  AGED  FLAG  OF  LABOR. 


The  Old,  Old  Crimson  Ensign — An  Emblem  of  Peace  and  Good 
Will  to  Man — Strange  Power  of  Human  Habit — Descent  of 
the  Red  Banner  through  Primitive  Culture — White  and  Azure 
the  Colors  of  Mythical  Angels,  Grandees  and  Aristocrats — 
Colors  for  the  Lowly  without  Family,  Souls  or  other  Seraphic 
Attributes — How  the  Red  Vexilluin  was  Stolen  from  Labor 
— Tricks  which  Compromised  Peace  Tenets  of  the  Flag — The 
Flag  at  the  Dawn  ot  Labor’s  Power — Testimony  of  Polybius 
— Of  Livy — Of  Plutarch — Causes  of  Working  People’s  Affec¬ 
tion  for  Red — The  Emblem  of  Health  and  the  Fruits  of  Toil 
— Ceres  and  Minerva  their  Protectresses  and  Mother-God¬ 
desses  Wore  the  Flaming  Red — Emblem  of  Strength  and  Vi¬ 
tality — Archaeology  in  Proof- — Their  Color  First  Borrowed 
from  Crimson  Sun-Beams — More  Light  and  less  Darkness — 
White  and  Pale  Hues  for  the  Priests — Origin  of  the  Word 
“  FLAG” — It  is  the  Word-Root  of  “  Flame”  a  Red  Color — 
Proofs  Quoted — Mediaeval  Banner  in  France  and  England — 
The  Red  of  All  Modern  Flags  Borrowed  from  that  of  the  An¬ 
cient  Unions — Disgraceful  Ignorance  of  Modem  Prejudice 
and  Censure. 

The  typical  color  of  the  great  non-laboring  classes  in  an¬ 
cient  times  was  white  and  azure  blue;  while  that  of  the 
strictly  laboring  element  was  red.  This  phenomenon  ha t 
come  down  to  us  by  the  power  of  habit,  from  high  antiquity.1 

1  Consult  Tylor,  Primitive  Culture,  (Vol.  T  pp.  70,  sq,  N.  \.  1888,  Survival, 
for  illustrations  on  the  power  of  habit:  “The  saying  that  marriages  in  May  are 
unlucky— believed  so  18  centuries  a:  o  and  more,  tee  Ovid,  Fastus,  V. — survives 
to  this  day  in  England,  a  striking  example  how  an  idea,  the  meaning  of  which 
has  perished  for  ages,  may  continue  to  exist  simply  because  it  has  existed 
There  are  thousand*  of  cases  of  this  kind  which  have  become,  so  to  speak,  iand- 


THE  OLD  RED  FLAG. 


White,  in  heathen  mythology,  was  thought  to  be  emblem¬ 
atical  of  degree.  It  was  the  color  used  by  the  gens  families 
and  by  the  priesthood.  Very  often  a  beautiful  azure  of  var¬ 
ious  shades  accompanied  the  pure  white.  Following  this 
habit  of  the  optimates  and  their  hierarchy,  we  still  imagine 
white  to  be  the  color  of  the  robes  of  angels,  and  still  make 
it  a  holy  color.2  All  people,  ancient  or  modern,  having  a 
history  and  a  priesthood  with  concomitant  crafts,  have  re¬ 
garded  white  as  the  adumbration  of  holiness,  of  purity,  of 
aristocracy.  It  is  the  color  which  befits  itself  to  supersti¬ 
tion  a"d  to  property;  therefore  the  gens  or  the  gentle,  who 
do  not  work,  who  are  unsoiled,  who  eat  up  the  products  of 
labor,  who  robe  themselves  in  white  and  ascend  throne,  see, 
chancel,  pulpit  or  patriarchal  seat,  and  who  talk  of  their 
*  subjects  ”  whom  they  spurn  and  absorb,  are  of  all  others 
most  certain  to  flaunt  the  robes  of  white  and  azure  and  shin¬ 
ing  purple.  These  colors  date  from  a  dim  era  of  antiquity, 
and  like  the  etymon  they  were  self-suggestive  as  the  anti¬ 
thesis  of  sweat  and  toil  and  grime.  They  embellished  and 
decked  the  bodies  of  the  “  washed,”  and  could  not  go  hand 
in  hand  with  creatures  smoked  and  smeared  at  the  furnace 
and  the  anvil.  Hence  a  contempt  of  labor.*  The  idea  of 
Plato  which  he  copied  from  the  Pagan  religion  and  which 
Christianity  unfortunately  afterwards  copied  from  him,  un¬ 
der  the  name  of  Neo-Platonism  was  that  of  white  robes, 
white  wings,  white  banners — a  mysterious  power  in  the 
clouds,  a  home  at  Mount  Olympus,  and  the  vaulted  dome 
of  heaven — and  myriads  of  slaves  and  menials  in  red,  brown, 
dun  and  murk  who  were  to  plod  without  souls,  liberties 


marks  in  the  course  of  culture.”  This  author  hereupon  cite*  many  instances 
showing  the  extreme  age  of  oar  paltriest  habits,  some  of  which  are  really  aston¬ 
ishing,  One  of  the  most  striking  instances  which  might  have  been  enumerated 
by  Mr.  Tylor,  along  with  the  many  that  he  here  adduces,  is  the  red  banner,  which 
for  antiquity  and  pith  of  antecedent  meaning  has  perhaps  no  rival  in  the  tale  of 
primitive  culture .  We  have  another  remark  illustrative  of  the  power  of  habit 
and  one  which  may  be  regarded  as  cunons  and  far-fetched,  made  by  Rogers,  So¬ 
cial  Life  in  Scotland,  Vol.  I.  p.  6,  in  speaking  of  the  giants  and  cave-dwellers  of 
the  stone  period;  “In  popular  euperstitlon  there  still  linger  memories  ofths 
Neolithic  age.”  This  is  really  wonderful. 

Revelations ,  vii.  9, 14.  So  idem,  xix.  8 ;  “  And  to  her  was  granted  that  she 
should  be  arrayed  in  fine  linen,  clean  and  white,  for  the  fine  linen  is  the  right- 
eousness  of  saints.”  So  again  xix.  14,  “  And  the  armies  which  were  in  heaven 
followed  him  upon  white  horses,  clothed  in  fine  linen,  white  and  clean.'' 

3  <;uhl  and  Koner,  Life  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  tr.  H lifter,  p.  485,  speaking 
or  the  ancients  says :  “  The  usual  color  of  the  dress  was  originally  white  for  the 
toga  this  was  prescribed  by  law),  only  poor  people,  slaves  andfreedmen  wore 
dress  of  the  natural  brown  or  black  colors.”  lied,  a  “color,”  was  always  consid- 
•red  liner  than  brown  or  black,  though  all  were  labor  colors, 


WHITE  IS  HIGH,  COLOR  LOW ;  RED,  A  COLOR,  467 


honors  or  rewards,  in  the  degrading  service  of  keeping  them 
white,  clean-washed  and  fat.  The  idea  of  Aristotle,  the 
practical,  was,  that  labor  itself  was  pure,  worthy,  and  the 
only  thing  which  could  possibly  lead  men  to  knowledge  and 
good;  yet  even  his  great  mind  could  not  at  that  eariy  day 
discern  a  method  of  ridding  the  world  of  slaves,  although 
Socrates,  a  member  of  a  commune  that  waved  the  red  ban¬ 
ner,  had  told  them  that  manual  labor  was  a  virtue.4 

Again,  white  was  the  color  of  the  ancient  aristocratic 
flag  or  military  banner,  both  of  the  Romans  and  Greeks. 
This  is  distinctly  told  to  us  in  an  elaborate  description  of  all 
the  phases  of  the  subject,  by  Polybius,6  who  wrote  just  at 
the  time  when  the  greater  slave  rebellions  were  beginning 
fiercely  to  rage. 

As  long  as  the  ancient  military  ranks  remained  undefiled 
by  the  presence  of  slaves  and  freedmen,  or  persons  of  lowly 
condition,  the  semeion  or  vexillum ,  that  is,  the  flags  and 
banners  were  white,  azure  and  gray.  But  we  find  that 
curiously  enough,  the  red  vexillum  comes  temptingly  into 
the  Roman  tent  at  the  very  time  when  the  workingmen  be¬ 
gan  to  assume  military  and  political  importance.  It  was 
evidently  introduced  as  a  means  for  inspiring  this  class  of 
soldiers  to  desperate  acts  of  valor;6  because  the  red  banner 
of  the  communes  was  so  sacred  to  them  that  they  would 
recklessly  cast  their  lives  into  the  jaws  of  death  in  the  act 
of  recapturing  it  from  an  enemy.  Multitudes  of  instances 
are  on  record  proving  that  the  Roman  generals  cunningly 
managed  to  toss  the  vexillum  or  red  banner,  in  some  surrep¬ 
titious  manner  over  into  the  enemy’s  camp  at  a  moment  of 
onset,  thereby  enthusing  the  soldiers  with  a  reckless  oblivion 
of  danger,  as  they  crushed  into  it  in  desperate  haste  and  de¬ 
termination  to  seize  from  the  polluted  fingers  of  the  bar¬ 
barian  their  endeared  and  cherished  flag.7 

*  For  more  on  this  great  man’s  philosophy,  see  chapters  iv.  on  the  Eleusinian 
Mysteries,  and  xxiv.  on  the  Plans  of  the  Ancient  Benefactors. 

6  Polybius  Megal,  IJistoria,  VII.  c.  39,  pp.  676-677,  ed.  Gronovii.  Amstelo- 
dami,  1670:  'Os  airiwTWW  dpicrpevuiv  Kai  avvriOo) v  ovTmv  Siaar^paTuiv  pera  Se  Taira 
ernpaca v  enr](ar  peiav  p ev  ttjv  npu>Tr)r  ev  <L  Set  t6ttu>  ttjv  tow  arparriyov  aKr\vT)v  Sov repay 
li  t<  ewi  ttjs  npeadei.crq<;  wAowpas,  rpirov  eni  pea r/?  T7js  ypapprp;  e<f>’  ijs  oL  xiAtapxoi 
Tpe(f>ovacv  rerpa.Tr\v  nap ’  noQev  ra  arparoneSa.  Kai  raw ras  per  noiovaai  <f)oii/u<af 
r t  Se  Kai  arparriyov  Aow/aow.  Ta  Se  em  dclrepa  no ri  per  \f/r)\a  Sopara  nrjyrvovai, 
more  Se  or/palas  £k  roir  aAAtov  \piopd 

6  In  earlier  times  the  plebeian  class  were  refused  admission  to  armies  as  sol¬ 
diers  solely  on  the  ground  that  military  work  is  aristocratic.  They  finally  over¬ 
came  this  prejudice  to  some  extent 

t  llutarch,  Paulus  iEmilius.  “  The  Romans  who  engaged  the  phalanx,  be- 


468 


THE  OLD  RED  FLAG. 


The  curiosity  of  the  reader  may  by  this  time  be  aroused 
to  understand  what  may  have  been  the  cause  of  this  strange 
affection.  We  shall  attempt  to  bring  out,  so  far  as  authen¬ 
tic  evidence  can  be  had,  the  facts  lying  at  the  bottom  of  the 
ineffaceable  love  in  the  strictly  proletarian  class,  for  the 
beautiful  and  incomputably  aged  red  banner;  and  in  doing 
so,  we  may  help  the  inquirer  in  the  effort  to  discern  the 
causes  of  this  emblem  having  so  successively  breasted  the 
storms  of  adversity  and  time  and  come  down  to  us  embalmed 
in  the  same  love  and  veneration  that  shrouded  and  shielded 
it  in  deep  antiquity,  when  it  knew  and  comforted  men  only 
as  poor  and  lowly  slaves. 

In  the  heathen  mythology  two  great  and  celebrated  de¬ 
ities  presided  overlabor — Minerva  and  Ceres.  The  Greek 
names  of  these  celebrated  and  much  adored  mythic  deities 
were  Demeter  for  Ceres,  goddess  of  agriculture  and  fruit¬ 
fulness  of  the  earth,  and  Athena  for  Minerva,  goddess  of 
manual  labor  and  protectress  of  working  women  and  work¬ 
ingmen.  These  two  great  deities  wore  flaming  red.8 

Bacchus  of  the  Romans  and  Dionysus  were  the  same 
myths  with  Ceres  and  Athena;  that  is,  they  seem  to  have 
personified  in  the  male  what  these  goddesses  did  in  the 
female;  and  their  vesture,  like  that  of  the  goddesses,  was 
flaming  red.  So  Apollo,  who  was  none  other  than  the  sun, 
w  as  allied  to  them  in  functions.  The  reason  of  this  is,  that 
both  genders  of  these  imaginary  beings  represented  the  an¬ 
cient  sun-worship.  The  brilliant,  flaming  light  of  the  sun  is 


ing  nnable  to  break  it.  Saline,  a  Pelignian  officer  snatched  the  ensign  of  the 
company,  and  threw  it  among  the  enemy.  Hereupon  the  Pelignians,  rushed  for¬ 
ward  to  recover  it.  for  the  Italians  look  upon  it  as  a  great  crime  and  disgrace  ;o 
abandon  their  standard.  A  dreadful  conflict  and  slaughter  on  both  sides  en 
sued.'’  Caesar,  Be  Bello  Gallico,  often  speaks  of  incidents  of  this  kind. 

s  The  state  robe  of  Athena  was  generally  of  a  flaming  red.  Abundance  of 
evidence  also  shows  the  colors  of  these  two  patrons  of  labor  to  have  been  red. 
Red  was  also  the  color  of  Proserpine,  the  daughter  of  Demeter  or  Ceres:  This 
v^tis  not  confined  to  Greece  and  Rome.  The  same  myths  wore  red  in  Asia,  Airica 
and  even  in  Britain,  See  Hughes,  Horce  Britannicce,  Vol.  I.  p  294,  Bond.  1818: 
“  The  British  Ked  or  Ceridwen ,  is  in  many  respects  the  same  character  as  the 
Ceres  of  the  Greek  mythology  and  the  Isis  of  the  Egyptians.  *  *  *  *  ■«  She  was 
arrayed  in  a  vesture  of  flaming  silk;  a  strong  wreath  of  ruddy  gold  was  about 
the  neck,  wherein  was  set  a  precious  pearl,  and  rows  of  coral ;  yellower  was  her 
hair  than  the  blossoms  of  the  broom  ;  her  skin  was  whiter  than  the  loam  of  the 
wave  ;  her  hands  and  fingers  were  fairer  than  the  opening  buds  of  the  water  lily, 
amid  the  small  ripplings  of  the  fountain  of  waters;  or  the  sight  of  the  hawk  af¬ 
ter  mewing,  or  the  sight  of  the  falcon  of  three  mews:  no  brighter  eyes  than  hers 
were  seen  ;  whiter  was  her  bosom  than  the  breast  of  the  fair  swan  ;  redder  her 
checks  than  the  rose  of  the  mountain;  whoever  saw  her  was  filled  with  love; 
four  white  trefoils  were  seen  to  rise  in  her  way  wherever  she  came,  and  there- 
ore  was  she  named  Olwen  or  the  fair  lady.” 


RED  AS  2 HE  EVENING  SUNBEAMS. 


4G9 


thought  to  have  been  the  first  object  of  awe  and  wonder  be¬ 
fore  which  primitive  man  bowed  himself  down  in  ador¬ 
ation.  It  was  the  great  and  magnificent  orb  of  day  that  in 
spring  warmed  the  first  sprigs  of  vegetable  life.  To  the 
grand  monarch  of  the  day,  the  ancient  laboring  man  first 
gave  homage  for  light  and  heat  which  caused  the  fruits  of 
his  planting  to  grow  and  ripen.  As  this  wondrous  being, 
always  believed  to  be  alive  and  rational,  immense  in  bulk, 
exquisite  in  beauty,  radiant  with  heat  and  life,  rose  out  of 
the  sea  and  skimmed  over  their  heads,  he  shed  forth  his 
crimson  flames  upon  their  labor  and  his  color  was  likened 
to  the  fluid  that  coursed  in  their  veins.  The  Dionysus  thus 
became  the  protective  principle  for  the  Greek-speaking  and 
the  Bacchus  for  the  Latin-speaking  world,  on  which  the  vast 
system  of  labor  organizations  we  have  described  was  founded, 
cultivated  and  perpetuated  for  thousands  of  years;  and  their 
natural  color  was  red,  or  color  refined. 

This  accounts  for  the  high-born  or  optimate  class  repre¬ 
sented  in  the  priesthood,  the  military,  the  non-laboring  ele¬ 
ment — in  other  words,  the  pretended  pure,  clean-washed 
and  unsoiled — having  a  contempt  for  color  and  for  labor  that 
soiled  ;  and  it  also  accounts  for  all  the  low-born,  represented 
in  occupations  of  agriculture  and  mechanics  like  the  labor¬ 
ing  element,  or  the  tainted,  tarnished,  sweat-begrimed,  hav¬ 
ing  a  natural  love  of  color,  whose  highest  type  is  red. 

It  was  a  thiug  most  natural  that  the  emblems  of  Ceres 
should  be  of  a  red  color.  She  was  of  herself  a  majesty  of 
no  inferior  sort.  The  products  of  her  care  were  wheat  and 
other  grain,  the  supply  of  which  from  the  earth,  furnished 
the  red  blood  always  known  to  be  the  animating  and  strength¬ 
giving  fluid  of  life;  although  the  exact  action  of  blood  from 
heart  to  lungs  and  thence  through  arteries,  and  its  return 
through  veins  was  a  more  recent  discovery.  It  is  thus  very 
natural  that  we  should  find  among  the  organizations  which 
chose  Ceres  as  their  patron  divinity,  the  strictest  adherence 
to  her  coat  of  arms  and  her  emblems  and  escutcheons,  the 
same  colors  that  she  was  known  to  prefer. 

Accordingly  the  inscriptions  contain  representations  of 
the  ancient  banner,  so  well  known  to  have  been  carried  at 
the  innocent  and  legalized  parades  of  the  t/iiasotes  and  or- 
glasses  in  Greece,  Palestine,  Asia  Minor  and  the  islands,  and 
by  the  saddles  and  collegia  in  almost  every  town,  little  or 


470 


TEE  OLD  RED  FLAG. 


large,  in  Italy.®  Even  at  Carthage  and  all  along  the  const 
of  North  Africa  remains  of  tiiese  organizations  are  being 
found. 

A  powerful  natural  reason  for  their  preferring  this  color 
was  probably  its  beauty.  The  color  red  is  known  in  optics 
to  be  the  first  one  on  the  list.  Then  come  orange,  yellow, 
green,  blue,  indigo  and  violet.10  White  is  not  a  color.  Azure 
is  a  hue.  Red  of  a  brilliant  hue  may  be  seen  at  a  greater  dis¬ 
tance  than  any  other  color  and  it  is  of  all  gifts  of  nature  one 
of  the  most  beautiful  and  inspiring.  Many  have  dubbed 
Ceres  the  tutelary  patroness  of  the  United  States.11  The 
flag  adopted  by  the  American  Union  is,  scientifically  con¬ 
sidered,  a  very  perfect  one;  the  metaphorical  meaning  of  the 
red  which  is  placed  in  the  stripes,  being  the  same  as  that 
involved  in  the  ancient,  which  has  a  wonderful  history  in 
the  past  of  labor.  If  the  modern  republic  has  any  divinity 
at  all,  it  is  Ceres,  Rhea,  Cybele,  Isis,  the  proiectress  of  the 
farmers,  and  Minerva  the  guardian  of  mechanics  and  inven¬ 
tions.  The  red  means  the  stripes;  not  the  revengeful, 
bloody  red  with  the  present  meaning  trumped  up  against  it 
in  some  wilfully  ignorant  minds,  covering  with  obloquy 
which  present  society,  unable  to  disabuse  itself  of  the  an¬ 
cient  grudge  and  contempt  of  labor,  still  uses  against  the  red 
flag,  but  the  exact  reverse — the  stripes  represent  the  blows 
which  labor  in  her  great  conflict  to  free  herself  from  enslave¬ 
ment,  poverty  and  oppression,  has  received  upon  her  back 
from  the  lash  of  aristocracy  and  brutal  force.  Unwittingly^ 
perhaps,  the  United  States  adopted  these  stripes  as  a  com¬ 
ponent  part  of  its  beautiful  and  suggestive  national  banner*, 
and  this  act  was  a  strictly  scientific  one ;  for  it  exactly  con¬ 
forms  with  the  ancient  symbol  red,  enormously  used  by 
Roman  and  Greek  organizations  expressive  and  significant 
of  the  scourge,  the  stripes  and  the  lines  of  blood  which 

9  Consult  chapter  xxi.  supra,  also  Ltiders,  DU  Dionysischen  Knottier;  Encyclo¬ 
pedic  lech. 

10  The  Encyclopaedia  Brittannica,  in  an  exhaustive  article  on  Light ,  (Vol.  XIV. 
p.  582),  reduces  the  primitive  colors  to  three— red,  green  and  violet.  This  makes 
red  to  be  the  monarch  of  colors,  as  the  oak  is  the  monarch  of  trees,  the  lion  the 
monarch  of  quadrupeds,  or  man  the  monarch  of  mortals  A  respectable  authority 
foi  modern  colors,  the  Encyclopedia  Technologiquc,  Tome.  I.  Art.  Couleur,  init, 
says:  "Ces  couleurs  fondainentales  sont:  Le  rouge- I’orangfi,  le  jaune,  le  bleu, 
l’indigo  et  le  violet.”  Here  also  the  red  is  the  first  m  ntiom  d  of  all  colors.  Tha 
Encyclopaedia  Brttannica.  Vol’  VII.  p.  495,  says;  the  red  holds  the  highest  po¬ 
sition  among  all  dyed  colors.” 

11  Carnegie,  Triumphant  Democracy,  p.  180.  “  Ceres  the  prime  divinity  of 
the  United  state#.” 


ITS  HISTORY  AS  AM  EMBLEM. 


471 


streaked  the  naked  backs  of  the  poor  and  lowly  of  ancient 
labor.12 

We  now  proceed  to  give  a  history  of  the  red  emblem  as 
used  against  labor  by  the  rich  and  strong,  for  the  seeming 
purpose  of  making  capital  out  of  the  reverence  and  affection 
always  clinging  in  the  organizations,  which  from  more  an¬ 
cient  times  they  had  inherited  as  the  chosen  color  of  their 
divinities,  Ceres,  Minerva,  Saturn  and  perhaps  Apollo. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  necessary  to  enter  into  an  analysis 
of  the  word  “  flag.”  A  glance  at  a  Latin  dictionary  will 
explain  that  flag  is  the  root  of  the  word  w  flamma  ” — a  cir¬ 
cumstance  altogether  extraordinary.  Andrews  for  instance, 
defines  flamma  as  follows:  “Flamma,  se.  (archaic genitive 
singular  flammai,  used  by  Lucretius,  I.  726;  899;  V.  1088) 
feminine  (flagtna  from  FLAG ;  whence  flagro  and  flagito, 
Greek  phlegma,  from  phlego).  A  blazing  fire,  blaze, 
flame.” 

This  is  an  aged  word  and  has  its  real  origin  in  the  red 
beams  of  the  sun  which  almost  all  men  in  primitive  ages 
adored  under  the  religion  of  the  sun- worshipers.  Without 
the  slightest  doubt  this  original  flag  was  one  of  the  names 
of  the  ancient  banner  which  was  red.  Because  it  was  red 
and  carried  by  the  secret  organizations  on  which  the  ruling 
minority  cast  a  taint,  it  never  attained  to  enough  popularity 
to  be  used  by  ancient  writers,  and  consequently  failed  to 
come  down  to  us  in  form  of  an  emblem,  or  with  the  signifi¬ 
cance  of  a  banner  or  flag,  although  it  never  lost  its  original 
meaning ;  and  its  many  variations  of  form  appear  in  history 
times  without  number.  The  innocent  original  changed  in 
time  to  a  multitude  of  instruments  of  torture.  It  got  to  be 
flagitium,  a  shameful  act,  then  flagrum  a  whip,  and  as  such 
was  stuck  in  bundles  (fasces),  along  with  an  axe  and  carried 
in  threatening  pomp  by  the  august  prgetors  to  scourge  slaves 
with.  How  could  the  old  red  flag  differentiate  into  a  whip? 

It  was  simply  the  work  of  hate  and  prejudice.  The  or¬ 
ganizations  would  never  give  up  their  red  banners ;  they  are 
carrying  them  still  by  the  power  of  habit,  although  the  be- 

13  Slaves  and  freedmen  sometimes  composed  a  part  of  the  forces  of  armiea 
In  the  time  of  Polybius .  This  author  who  wrote  as  early  as  B.  C.  145,  describes 
the  arrangement  in  the  camps,  of  both  slaves  and  freedmen,  as  well  as  their  du¬ 
ties:  “Mrra  8err)v  <rraTonSiiai>  avvaOpoiOevres  oi  ^lAiap^ot,  tovs  ck  tov  arpaTonfSov 
navTCf  e\ovQepovs  opov  rj  SovAov?  opKt£ovo c,  ko.0'  eva  noto’  /aei  or  re  ipmapov.  'O 
opKos  iaiv  prjSev  ex  tt)> >  napipfiohr)';  /cAet/zen'-  a AAa.  «a»'  evpij  t?/s  tout’  aroicret'  twl 
rois  xtAtap^oic. "  Polybius,  Historia,  Vi.  31,  inti. 


472 


THE  OLD  RED  FLAG. 


lief  in  the  power  of  the  once  omnipotent  Ceres  and  Minerva 
has  long  since  faded  from  the  earth.18  The  prejudice  against 
their  banner  and  the  innumerable  communes  was  based  upon 
their  supposed  meanness,  which  is  also  fast  being  outgrown. 
This  prejudice  was  also  heightened 14  by  the  fact  that  the  or¬ 
ganizations  grew  powerful,  sometimes  rich  and  influential, 
always  preaching  a  cult  opposed  to  the  despotism  of  capital 
and  often  and  especially  in  Italy,  as  we  have  seen,  becoming 
a  potent  factor  in  politics,  which  was  a  crime  against  the 
aristocracy  of  ownership  and  military  and  political  power 
held  by  the  great  gens  families  and  their  slave-based  religion. 

It  is  thus  plainly  seen  that  in  ancient  days,  the  red  ban¬ 
ner  was  an  emblem  among  the  labor  societies,  of  blood- 
making ,  not  of  blood-letting ;  while  among  the  grandees  it 
was  emblematical  of  blood  -spilling  and  torture ;  never  indi¬ 
cative  of  building  up,  either  the  human  body  or  the  body 
politic.  The  system  upon  which  the  ancient  aristocracy 
rested  was  cruelly  and  ferociously  competitive  and  its  pro¬ 
duct  was  slavery  while  its  instruments  of  creating  as  well  as 
perpetuating  this  thankless  institution  were  legalized  lascivi¬ 
ousness  of  its  lords,  and  whips  and  scourges  dyed  red  in  the 
blood  of  laborers  whose  backs  streaked  with  crimson  which 
flowed  from  the  furrows  made  by  thongs,  that  their  own 
greatness  and  their  victims*  littleness  might  be  more  widely 
contrasted.15 

Let  ns  now  turn  to  the  working  people  and  their  flag. 
In  the  first  place  the  primitive  mind  of  man  conceives  a 
fondness  for  flaming  colors,  and  red,  which  is  the  champion 
of  tints,  attracted  their  delight  by  its  beauty.  One  may 
stretch  the  imagination  to  conceive  that  this  fact  originated 
its  adoption  by  his  protecting  divinities;  for  he  would  nat¬ 
urally  incline  to  fix  their  favorite  colors  in  harmony  with  his 
own  tastes  or  fancies.  We  have  as  a  result,  of  the  natural 
and  innocent  fancy  of  primitive  mind  for  this  beautiful 
ground-color,  all  the  lowly  estate  of  antiquity,  fixing  their 
institutions  in  blazoned  red,  and  nailing  virtue,  peace,  social- 

18  See  Bomllet,  Hi&toire  des  Community  des  Arts  *<  deg  Mltlers  de  P  Auvergne, 
passim.  Text  and  plates,  representing  the  “  ban  nitres  *’  as  were  need  In  middle 
ages. 

14  Juvenal,,  Satires. 

18  Lycurgus,  whose  slave  system  in  Lacedemon  we  have  described,  laid  down 
a  rale  by  which  slaves  were  whipped  at  night  without  having  committed  an  of¬ 
fense  after  having  worked  all  day.  This  punishment  was  to  humiliate  them  for 
submissiveness  next  day.  They  must  also  crouch  lest  should  they  stand  aveot 
they  be  compared  with  men.  See  Flutaxch  Lycurgtu. 


ITS  ORIGIN  IN  SUN-WORSHIP. 


ism,  poverty  and  resignation,  to  their  unobtrusive  banner — 
a  bi  diant  red.  We  find  them,  too,  irrevocable  in  the  belief 
that  Ood,  dressed  in  the  crimson  glories  of  the  sun  and  in 
awful  justice,  threw  light  and  warmth  and  glory  upon  the 
crops  of  their  sowing  and  the  mechanical  products  of  their 
handicraft ;  while  the  power  of  habit — that  second  law  of 
perpetuation  of  being — has  transmitted,  even  to  this  day, 
an  ineffaceable  love  in  the  poor,  for  those  endeared  and 
cherished  emblems.1* 

The  celebrated  red  himation 17  and  chiton  were  for  a  long 
time  the  principal  article  of  clothing.  The  dancing  girls 
and  flute-players  wore  them  during  the  voluptuous  age  of 
Athens,  They  were  worn  at  the  feasts  of  Dionysus  by  the 
communists  of  the  thiasoi.  Of  this  we  have  the  positive 
evidence  of  numerous  inscriptions,  some  of  which,  although 
engraved  on  stone,  are  very  good  pictures  of  the  feasters  re¬ 
turning  from  their  march  through  the  streets. 

At  Rome  this  love  of  the  red  banner  among  the  plebeians 
was  often  turned  to  profit  by  the  rich.  After  the  overthrow 
of  the  Roman  kings  (B.  C.  510),  two  officers  little  less  in 
power  than  the  kings  themselves,  were  installed  as  supreme 
rulers  in  their  place.  These  were  the  consuls.  A  great 
growth  of  the  power  of  the  laboring  element,  as  we  have 
shown  in  preceding  chapters  on  Trade  Unions,  very  gradu¬ 
ally  oame  into  the  world;  and  this  new  force  immediately 
began  to  make  incursions  upon  and  against  the  consular 
authority.  The  red  flag  is  involved  in  this  quarrel.  It  had 
been  the  kings  who  upheld  the  unions;  the  consuls,  who 

w  Examples  proving  red  to  have  been  the  primeval  color  among  the  servant 
class  are  being  constantly  discovered  in  the  Inscriptions.  Dr.  Scnliemann,  in 
Tiryns,  pp.  303-307,  gives  Prof.  Fabricins’  descriptions  of  the  “mighty  bull,” 
recently  discovered  in  a  wall-painting  of  that  pre-Homeric  city.  The  animal, 
mostly  red,  is  leaping  and  bounding  at  the  games,  while  an  acrobat  upon  his 
back  is  girding  him  in  the  dangerous  scene.  These  actors,  always  of  the  slave 
race  (see  chap.  xvii.  Amusements  of  Antiquity ,  pp.  401-414),  were  tugging  and 
sweating  without  pay,  for  masters,  a  thousand  years  before  Christ.  Inis  scene 
is  represented  in  Plate  XIII.  while  fig.  142  gives  another  proof  of  the  remarka¬ 
ble  proclivity  in  days  before  Homer,  for  red.  ‘‘  Whilst  the  lower  broad  stripe  is 
.-ed,  the  ground  of  the  ornament  shows  a  bright  red  colour;  the  two  strokes  of 
the  scale  -  like  ornament  are  black,  the  little  circles  and  lines  within  the  scales, 
white.  Very  noteworthy  is  the  simultaneous  occurrence  of  two  different  shades 
of  the  red  color  ” 

n  Guhl  and  Koner.  Life  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  p.  160,  sqq.  These  gar¬ 
ments  are  here  minutely  described.  “Men  also  appear  in  these  pictures  with 
the  cherry  coloured  chlamys  and  the  red  himation.’  But  we  remark  that  the 
same  authors  assure  ns  in  both  their  descriptions  of  the  Greeks,  and  of  the  Hom¬ 
ans,  that  colors  were  only  for  the  common  people.  In  course  of  time  the  hima¬ 
tion,  originally  white  and  worn  by  the  rich,  became  popular  and  look  on  the 
*»ioheian  hue. 


474 


THE  OLD  RED  FLAG 


from  the  very  first,  endeavored  to  suppress  them.  These 
magnates  were  the  natural  enemies  of  the  working  class ;  the 
kings  their  natural  friends.  This  seeming  phenomenon  is 
a  suggestive  fact  of  history.  The  kings  wanted  and  recog¬ 
nized  their  systematic,  organized  labor;  the  consuls,  who 
where  sure  to  be  rich  grandees  of  blood  and  family,  were 
jealous  as  well  as  afraid  of  this  new  and  growing  power 
which  the  mild  and  favorable  laws  of  the  kings  had  made  it 
possible  for  labor  to  develop  under. 

This  was  the  origin  of  the  greatest  intestine  contest  Rome 
ever  had.  It  was  a  death-grapple  of  lordship  with  labor,  in 
which  consular  power  aped  the  banner  and  color  of  com¬ 
munes,18  and  even  bent  all  energy  to  involve  Rome  in  Great 
wars  of  conquest  for  the  express  object  of  wriggling  out  of 
the  terrible  plebeian  grip.19 

The  patrician  consuls  fought  the  hated  workingmen,  ac¬ 
cording  to  Livy,  with  such  an  unabating  determination  for 
about  five  years  (B.  C.  375-370),  as  to  cause  a  soiitudomag - 
istratuum  *°  or  vacancy,  in  which  there  occurred  what  is  now 
called  an  interregnum — neither  the  lords  nor  the  people, 
holding  the  helm  of  power.  This  was  under  the  plebeian, 
Licinus  Stolo,  author  of  the  agrarian  law,  the  most  renowned 
statute  of  antiquity — a  germ  of  the  same  contention  which 
cost  the  Gracchi,  Blossius  and  Clodius  their  lives,  as  cham¬ 
pions  for  the  poor  in  the  memorable  agrarian  and  labor  tur¬ 
moils,  and  finally  brought  Rome,  with  her  Cicero  and  Csesar 
to  an  ignominious  end,  because  she  purloined  the  aegis  of 
laborers  on  whom  she  glutted  herself  while  maintaining 
slavery  as  a  fundament  of  her  religion  and  government. 

18  See  Encyclopcedia  Brittanica,  9th  edition,  Stoddart,  Phil.  Vol.  VI.  p.  279, 
describing  the  consuls:  “  A  cloak  with  a  scarlet  border  and  an  ivory  staff  were 
badges  of  their  office.’5  For  more  than  600  years  thereafter  the  scarlet  which 
darkened  into  purple  became  a  state  color  The  consuls  stole  the  red  vexillum 
by  a  similar  species  of  trick,  from  the  communes— a  blasphemy  against  the  an¬ 
cient  peace-color  of  Ceres  and  Minerva  the  protecting  divinit.  es  or  laborers  and 
the  fruits  of  labor.  The  following  modern  criticism  admits  this :  If  the  consuls 
“wished  to  subdue  any  outbreak  of  the  plebeians,  they  feigned  that  some 
powerful  enemy  was  marching  against  the  city,  and  thus  succeeded  In  obtaining 
extraordinary  powers.”  Enqjclopcedia  Britannic  a,  Vol.  VI.  p.  280. 

19  Speaking  of  those  patrician  consuls,  the  same  author  in  idem,  column  2, 
says:  ‘‘  Having  once  begun  the  struggle  (against  the  plebeians),  however,  they 
maintained  it  for  the  space  of  80  years,  with  a  spirit  and  resolution  which  made 
even  a  foreign  war  desirable  as  a  relief  from  internal  contests.’5 

20  Livy,  VI.  35,  Jin.  “  Haud  irritaa  cecedere  minae:  comitia,  prater  aedilium 
tribunorumque  plebis,  nulla  sunt  habita.  Licinius  Sextlusque,  tribuni  plebls  re- 
fecti,  nnllos  curnles  magistratus  creari  passi  sunt:  eaqne  solxtudd  vuigistratum,  et 
plebe  reflclente  duos  trlbunos,  ct  his  comitia  tribunorum  militum  tollentibus, 
per  qninquennium  urbem  tenuit.”  Such  was  the  tremendous  power  of  the  outr 
c  ist  element  thai  Rome  lost  her  aristocratic  hold  for  5  whole  years. 


PRAETORS  WITH  WHIPS  ANT)  AXES. 


475 


Iu  this  aristocratic  consular  arrangement,  next  after  the 
consuls  themselves,  were  many  praetors,  lieutenants  of  the 
consuls  and  lord  mayors  of  the  provincial  cities.  These 
with  the  Romans  were  also  generally  the  grandees  who  dis¬ 
pensed  military  force.21  M  The  insignia  of  the  praetor  were 
those  common  to  the  higher  Roman  magistrates — the  pur¬ 
ple-edged  robe  (toga  praetexta ),  and  t  he  ivory  chair  ( sella 
curulis).  In  Rome  he  was  attended  by  two  lictors,  in  the 
provinces  by  six.’’  The  curules  or  ivory  sedans,  were  from 
the  state  four  and  six  horse  chariots  and  represent  extraor¬ 
dinary  power. 

An  example  of  the  power  exercised  by  the  praetor  over 
the  poor  slave,  is  given  by  us  in  another  page,  where  a 
brave  man  in  Sicily,  for  killing  a  dangerous  wild  boar,  so 
excited  his  lordship’s  jealousy,  that,  taking  advantage  of 
an  ancient  law  prohibiting  persons  of  lowly  birth  from  the 
use  of  the  javelin,  he  ordered  the  trembling  man  to  be 
crucified  upon  the  spot.  These  praetors  made  use  of  the 
red  color  of  labor  for  the  brutal  purposes  of  war,  and  it 
looks  seriously  as  though  this  was  a  sort  of  cunning  ruse 
or  dodge,  played  upon  the  credulous,  whereby  to  curry 
favor  with  the  already  powerfully  organized  numbers  of 
labor. 

Next  after  the  consuls  and  praetors  in  the  military  pag¬ 
eant  came  the  lictors.  They  wore  the  blue  and  azure 
cloak  when  in  the  field,  which  was  the  sagum  caeruleum , 
epithet  of  death,  darkness,  night.  In  this  garb  the  lie- 
tor’s  fierce  military  characteristics  were  personified.  The 
grand  magistrate’s  attendant,  he  strutted  at  the  pageant 
in  line  of  march,  with  a  bundle  of  rods  in  his  hand  and 
held  on  high  the  formidable  axe  of  execution,  that  the 
people  might  understand  the  presence  of  a  sublime  power 
and  bow  their  heads  in  respect.  If  a  criminal  or  malefactor 
was  caught,  his  duty  was  to  whip  him  with  the  scourges 
and  cleave  his  head  from  his  body  with  the  axe.22 

Encyclopaedia  Brittanica,  Vol.  XIX.  p  675 
22  Livy,  I.  26.  “Horatius  cui  goror  virgo,  quae  desponsa  i  ni  ex  Curiatils 
fnerat.ob  via  ante  port  am  Capenam  fuit :  cognitoque  super  humeros  paludamento 
epcnsl.  quod  ipsa  con fecerat,  solvit  crines.  et  fiebilitcr  nomine  sponsion  mortmain 
appellat.  .Movet  feroci  juveni  animnm  comploratio  sororis  in  victoria  Mia  tan- 
toque  gaudio  publico,  i-  tricto  iiaque  gladio,  simul  verbis  inerepans.  trsnsugit 
puellum:  ‘Abi  hinc  cum  immaturo  amore  ad  sponsion,  inquit  *  *  *  *  }  lictor 
colliga  manos  quae  paullo  ante  armatae  imperiuni  populo  Komano  pepererunt.” 
The  same  ferocious  order  wa>  given  the  lictor  by  the  father  of  Manlius.  Livy.  X 
liber  VIII.  cap.  7(  ;  *‘I.  lictor  deliga  ad  |  alum.”  A  consul,  praetor  or  other  su 
perior  officers  had  the  right  to  order  a  lictor  to  perform  any  execution. 


m 


THE  OLD  RED  FLAG . 


But  when  there  was  peace  and  while  they  were  in 
Rome,  the  lictors  wore  the  toga,  purple  or  purple-bor¬ 
dered,  because  the  lictors  must  be  of  high-born  stock;  al¬ 
though  the  toga  of  the  unions  was  red,  brown  or  dark 
red.  It  corresponded  in  Italy  to  the  himation  in  Greece; 
and  was  the  color  of  the  lowly  class  everywhere,  repre¬ 
senting  peace,  not  war,23  as  seen  in  any  Latin  dictionary. 
This  remarkable  fact  reveals  itself  more  and  more  plainly 
as  the  arguments  and  material  evidences  upon  which  it 
is  based,  receive  investigation.  Full  attention  to  the  an¬ 
cient  communal  inscriptions  has  not  yet  been  given,  partly 
on  account  of  the  fact  that  colors  do  not  often  survive 
even  where  they  were  painted  on  the  tablets;  but  princi¬ 
pally,  because  ensigns  and  emblems  whose  colors,  being 
sacred  were  at  all  times  universally  conceded  were  never 
painted  at  all,  but  simply  engraved  on  the  stone  or  cast¬ 
ing  in  the  natural  color  of  the  material  on  which  they 
were  cut.  But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  lictors 
who  were  required  to  be  of  the  optimate  class,  wore  only 
a  purple-red,  not  the  labor-red.  This  was  a  mixture  of 
the  genuine  with  the  azure  (cseruleus)  or  the  white. 

Thus  color  in  ancient  days,  socially  speaking,  was  a  line 
of  demarcation  separating  optimates  from  plebeians.34 
We  have  thus  shown  how  in  war  the  sagum  and  the  vexil- 


**  See  note  — supra ,  on  the  red  himation, 

**  See  Guhl  and  Koner,  Life  of  the  Greelcs  and  Romans,  pp.  485-0 :  11  The  usual 
colour  of  the  dress  was  originally  white  (for  the  toga  this  was  required  by  law) : 
only  poor  people,  slaves  and  freedmen  wore  dresses  of  the  natural  brown  or 
black  colour  of  the  wool.”  “In  imperial  times,  however,  even  men  adopted 
dresses  of  scarlet  etc.”  *  *  *  “The  bride  wears  a  reddish  violet  stola.  adorned 
with  an  embroidered  instita  of  darker  hue.”  These  are  the  poorer  class,  as  they 
seem  to  come  under  the  general  remark  quoted,  viz:  that  only  poor  people,  slaves 
and  freedmen  wore  colors.  Then  (page  486  ,  occurs  this  remark;  The  outside  of 
Perseus’  dress  is  reddish  brown,  the  inside  white,’’  as  if  to  coax  with  the  great 
rising  element,  while  taking  care  to  keep  “  pure  ”  within,  in  difference  to  this 
fabulous  royal  potentate,  son  of  the  great  crorulean  Zeus.  Speaking  of  the  toga 
of  Italy,  or  the  himation  of  Greece,  the  same  authors,  p.  486  remark,  that 
“  Looked  at  straight,  the  blood-red  dresa  thus  prepared  had  a  blackish  tint : 
looked  at  from  underneath,  it  showed  a  bright  red  color  ”  Thus  the  toga  no 
matt  r  by  whom  worn,  was  red  when  it  represented  peace— a  fact  which  remaims 
good  for  all  antiquity;  while  the  regular  war-colors  were  azure  and  blue  or  whte 
and  azure-blue.  So  again  idem,  p-  168,  speaking  of  the  Greek  robes  and  other 
articles  of  apparel,  and  the  pictures  whence  'the  information  is  taken,  says ; 
‘  Men  also  appear  in  these  pictures,  with  the  cherry-coloured  chlamys  and  the 
red  himation ;  ’  and  speakingof  the  Mu-pa  or  ancient  turban,  used  also  sometimea 
as  a  zone- belt,  which  was  red,  the  same  authors  add:  The  Oriental  turban  is 
undoubtedly  a  remnant  of  this  custom.”  Here  again  we  have  an  exampleof  the 
power  of  habit,  to  transmit  itself  through  indefinite  periods  of  time.  In  another 
phrase,  idem,  p.  168,  speaking  of  the  plebeian  class,  1>  the  expression:  “The 
original  colors,  although  (particular  the  reds)  slightly  altered  by  the  burning  pro¬ 
cess,  may  still  be  distinctly  recognized.” 


ANCIENT  COLOR  LINK 


477 


lum  in  its  original  tints,  were  white,  cterulean  or  azure 
and  blue,  in  the  field  of  war,28  while  the  peace  toga  which 
was  red  and  the  vexillum  when  seen  among  the  com¬ 
munes,  were  of  a  brilliant  crimson,  Bo  also  we  have  ex¬ 
plained  somewhat  the  manner  in  which  in  later  ages  of 
the  republic  the  phenomenal  love  and  reverence  of  the 
lowly  class,  so  soon  as  they  exhibted  a  political  and  mili¬ 
tary  weight  was  taken  advantage  of  and  even  adopted  in 
sham  in  the  Roman  camp,  seemingly  to  curry  favor  with 
this  rising  class.  It  now  remains  to  further  proceed  in 
explanation  of  the  Roman  military  pageant. 

The  next  officers  in  rank  after  the  lictor  were  sometimes 
the  equites  or  knights  on  horseback ;  and  their  military 
pomp,  when  preceded  by  consuls,  praetors  and  their  lictors, 
as  the  latter  bore  aloft  their  praetorian  bundles  of  whips 
and  their  hatchets  and  axes  when  going  out  of  the  gates 
to  war,  or  returning  in  triumph  from  it,  was  a  spectacle 
anything  but  flattering  to  the  poor,  to  whose  backs  and 
necks  the  scourges  and  the  axes  were  too  often  applied. 

Another  powerful  argument  substantiating  the  preva¬ 
lence  of  red  as  an  adopted  color  of  the  gods  of  industry, 
where  peace  and  not  war  was  intended,  is  seen  in  the  typi¬ 
cal  goddess  Pomona,  another  name  perhaps  for  Ceres  or 
Demeter,  Isis,  Oybele  and  other  guardians  of  agricultural 
labor.  She  presided  over  the  orchard  fruits  and  the  gar¬ 
dens,  and  her  emblem,  symbol  or  sign  was  a  flaming 
red.  This  old  Roman  divinity  had  charge  of  fruit- 
orchards.  In  the  deep  forests  she  was  adored  by  satyrs 
and  other  sylvan  fairies.28 

Pomona  stands  out  as  an  excellent  corroboration  to  the 
argument  that  from  the  most  ancient  conceivable  times 
red  was  the  typical  color  for  the  symbols,  emblems  or  ban¬ 
ners  of  the  strictly  working  people  and  shows  furthermore, 
that  to  carry  out  the  original  idea  of  Pomona,  a  priest 
or  priestess  of  a  Pomona  of  to-day  must  be  attired  in  a 
flaming  red  and  must  not  represent  strife ;  as  her  function 
is  that  of  peace.27  It  was  even  forbidden  on  high  penalty 
that  her  attendant  servant  or  priest  should  look  upon  an 

26  Cicero.  In  Pisonem,  23 Xogulge  lictoribus  ad  portam  preeeto  fuernnt, 
luibus  illi  acceptis,  sagula  rejecerunt  et  catervam  imperatori  suo  novam  praebae- 
'unt.’’ 

20  Ovid.  Metamorphoses,  XIV.  623  seqq 

Gnhl  and  Konor,  Life  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  p,  686 


478 


THE  OLD  RED  FLAG. 


army;  strife  being  to  her  a. terrible  sin.  He  must  even 
turn  his  head  from  the  sight  of  soldiers. 

This  divinity  chose  “  from  the  plebs  ”  “  a  priest  called 
the  Flamen  Pomonalis.  He  was  allowed  to  take  a  wife  but 
could  never  bo  divorced  from  her;  for  that  would  be  sug¬ 
gestive  of  strife.  True  to  the  typical  color  of  the  labor 
she  represented,  she  was  called  flaminica,  and  she  held  in 
her  hand  a  pruning  knife,  although  this  instrument  is 
represented  to  have  also  been  intended  for  sacrificing  the 
lamb  at  the  feasts  of  Pomona.  She  was  robed  in  a  chiton 
or  himation,  which  in  Rome  was  called  a  toga.  It  was 
made  of  wool,  and  was  screened  from  the  vulgar  by  a 
long  veil,  ( flammeum ),  of  a  flaming  red  color  or  Phoenician 
glow,29  typical  of  her  plebeian  estate.  This  tlaminica  not 
only  represented  and  presided  over,  but  also  performed, 
labor ;  for  she  busied  herself  in  the  toils  of  her  husband, 
the  flamen,  in  the  work  of  the  feasts  and  entertainments. 
The  collegia  were  fond  of  celebrating  by  parading  with 
flaming  streamers  and  flags. 

The  worship  of  the  sacred  ibis  has  also  something  to 
do  in  this  connection.  It  is  mentioned  in  company  with 
Pomona  and  was  probably  the  sacred  scarlet  ibis,  of  the 
Egyptians,  whose  red  colors  have  ever  been  unscientifically 
mixed  or  confounded  with  the  flamingo.  This  bird, 
agreeably  to  its  name,  flamen,  flaminica,  flamingo  was,  es¬ 
pecially  all  the  wing  part,  of  a  fiery  red  ( phoenicopteros ). 
The  imagination  of  the  ancients  pictured  the  red  to  be 
emblematic  of  love,80  ardency  and  warmth ;  all  of  which 
were  portrayed  in  the  beams  of  the  sun,  and  Buck  impres¬ 
sions  crystalized  into  a  red  color.  But  the  aristocratic 

28  See  Johnson’s,  Univcrsel  Oyclopcedia ,  Vol.  III.  p.  1,328,  Art.  Pomona ; 

Ovid,  Metamorphoses,  XIV.  023, says  that  she  was  courted  by  Puemunus  another 
d  vinity  of  the  Italian  forests  and  gained  her  by  a  trick.  It  is  also  stated  that 
Pomona  had  a  citadel  or  seat  among  sacred  groves  near  Ostia  called  the  Pomonal 
and  that  she  had  a  vicegerent  or  sacerdos— a  man  or  perhaps  woman  chosen  from 
among  the  laboring  element,  who  had  to  rank  last  and  lowest  of  the  15  flames 
of  Rome,  From  Varro,  Lingua  Latina,  V.  15,  25  ;  flamines,  quod  in 

Latio,  capite  velato,  erant  semper  ac  caput  cinctumhabebant  ftlo,  flamines  dicti.” 

29  Consult  Fkimineus ,  sq.  in  any  good  Latin  Lexicon;  Gubl  and  Koner,  p,  537 

so  So  in  Greek  we  have 'EpwSio?  for  the  heron  presumably  applied  to  both 

these  birds  the  scarlet  ibis  and  the  flamingo  sometimes  adored  for  the  scarlet  or 
sacred  ibis.  But  the  ’ep<o5id?  was  a  form  of  'epms  signifying  the  flame  of  love. 
So  Ardea ,  the  Latin  for  heron  the  self-  ame  bird,  has  its  etymology  in  ardeo  to 
burn  and  blaze.  It  may  therefore  be  strongly  suspected  that  Pomona  and  he 
flnmens  had  something  to  do  with  the  temple  at  Ardea  near  Rome  burned  by 
iEneas,  and  from  whose  ashes,  phoenix  like,  arose  the  wonierful  red  heron  or 
phoenix.  Nothing  can  gainsay  this,  for  both  ardea  and  4>criv£  are  the  flaming 
reds  of  Latin  and  Greek. 


RED  THE  MONARCH  OF  COLORS. 


475 


idea  of  the  ego  as  known  in  the  noble,  opposed  to  the  ig¬ 
noble  or  plebeian,  was  always  of  an  awe-striking  or  im¬ 
posing  hue,  such  as  the  white,  azure,  blue  and  gray. 

Curiously  enough  the  celebrated  sacred  scarlet  ibis  of 
the  ancients  is  found  more  frequently  in  the  Americas  than 
on  the  Nile,  which  leads  to  a  plausible  conjecture  that  this 
heron  was  the  flamingo,  another  red  heron,  migratory 
and  common  on  the  Nile.  These  well-known,  gregarious 
red  birds,  “  when  feeding,  or  at  rest,  owing  to  their  red 
plumage,  have  often  been  likened  to  a  body  of  British 
soldiers.31 

It  is  thus  shown  that  red  was  the  crystalization  of  all 
dark  hues,  while  white,  in  primitive  notions,  was  a  state, 
purified  altogether  from  color;  and  thus  the  true  aristo¬ 
cratic  symbol.  Labor’s  warm,  serum-reddened  currents 
of  love  and  life  and  manly  vigor,  together  with  its  vast  af¬ 
fixture  of  paraphernalia ,  which  from  the  mythical  ages 
clustered  around  this  central  color,  was  always  based 
upon  the  opposite  of  those  formidable,  repellent  hues  re¬ 
siding  in  the  awe-inspiring  idea  of  nobility. 

Persons  inclined  to  doubt  may  here  conceive  an  objec¬ 
tion  based  in  the  fact  that  there  was,  common  among  the 
optimates,  an  aristocratic  or  imperial  purple  and  that  this 
purple  was  not  only  of  a  reddish  hue  but  also  an  august 
color ;  so  costly  and  grand  that  it  could  not  be  permitted 
by  law  to  be  worn,  except  by  great  dignitaries. 

The  answer  to  this  objection  is,  however,  easily  met. 
In  very  ancient  times  owing  to  the  popularity  of  the  com¬ 
munal  cult,  an  enormous  trade  and  manufacture  of  the 
Tyrian  red  and  purple  was  carried  on.  That  nobody  but 
the  great  masses  dealt  in  this  trade  is  evident  from  the 
fact  that  after  the  rise  of  the  proletarian  power,  Rome 
began  a  conquest  ending  only  in  the  massacre,  subjuga¬ 
tion  and  enslavement  of  these  millions  who  had  sustained 
the  trade.  Rome,  probably  to  curry  favor  with  her  “  dan¬ 
gerous  class”  at  home,  and  after  she  had  reduced  the 
world  by  conquest,  passed  a  law  making  it  a  crime  for 
anybody  to  use  the  red  except  the  nobles.  After  this  law 
went  into  force  in  Phoenicia  the  workingmen  engaged  in 
the  great  and  wide-spread  trade  of  dyeing,  so  completely 
lost  their  business,  that  even  the  secret  of  their  ancient 

81  Eneyclopcedia  Britannica,  Vol.  IX,  p.  250. 


480 


TEE  OLD  RED  FLAG. 


and  beautiful  hues  was  lost  and  it  has  never  been  recov¬ 
ered  to  this  day.82  Now  this  all  proves  that,  agreeably  to 
our  views  previously  expressed,  the  purple  came  in  vogue 
with  the  power  of  the  plebs,  who  had  this  beautiful  color; 
since  these  great  conquests  abroad  commenced  less  than 
*200  years  before  Christ.  All  agree  with  Polybius  88  who, 
himself  one  of  the  victims  of  these  conquests,  devotes 
pages  to  an  account  of  the  origin  of  Roman  degeneracy. 
When  Rome  suppressed  the  manufacture  of  the  hated 
red  color  of  the  organized  communes  she  herself  adroitly 
donned  the  purple  of  labor’s  goddess — “  the  brilliantly 
tinted  garments  ”  of  the  priests  of  Isis  and  Osiris,  of  Ceres 
and  Demeter,  of  Pomona  and  her  flaminica,  for  u  a  man¬ 
tle  of  a  Roman  emperor.”  So  that  while  it  is  easy  to  show 
that  in  later  times,  when  Rome  was  tumbling  into  that 
great  slave-holding  period  which  brought  degeneracy  and 
death,  she  intriguingly  filched  the  beautiful  color,  and  after 
streaking  it  with  the  old  aristocratic  gray  and  adulterat¬ 
ing  it  with  blue  or  white  or  azure,  she  gave  it  to  her  lords 
and  ladies ;  its  makers  with  their  aged  secret,  she  gave  to 
the  wild  beasts  of  the  gladiatorial  games  to  be  “  butchered 
for  a  Roman  holiday.”  But  it  is  not  easy  to  prove  that 
the  purple  containing  the  red  was  used  by  the  impera- 
tores  before  the  conquests.  True,  it  is  so  mentioned; 
but  it  was  not  the  red-purple — only  the  azure-blue  which 
received  this  name. 

It  is  not  in  the  scheme  of  these  arguments  to  attempt 
a  polemic  for  or  against  the  primitive  notions  of  mankind 
in  regard  to  the  choice  of  colors.  We  find  species  of  in¬ 
nocent  consistency  all  through.  As  white  was  the  essence 
or  crystal  of  ^'scolor,  symbolizing  purity,  aristocracy — 
to  agatAoteron,  the  better  part,  while  its  nuances  of  beau¬ 
tiful  blue,  its  silvered  gray  and  azure,  all  pointed  to  the 
etherial  sky,  lofty,  forbidding  and  sublime,  so  red,  among 
the  divinities  of  a  yielding  or  producing  race,  was  the  es¬ 
sence,  or  crystallization  of  all  color,  from  the  murky  smut 
of  earth  to  brown  and  dun,  at  last  reaching  the  gorgeous 

a*  Consult  Encyclopaedia  Britannlca,  VoL  VII.  D.  498. 

3s  Polybius,  in  his  Histories,  distinctly  states  tnat  the  decline  of  the  Bomu 
honor  and  virtue  began  wit  h  these  conquests.  For  modern  opinion  on  the  date 
of  Roman  decline  see  Bucher  Au/stdnde  der  Unfrcivn  Ar better,  where  numerous 
valuable  quotations  are  made  from  Polybius,  Atnenseus  and  others  will  be  found 
of  much  interest,  shedding  a  new  light  upon  the  subject. 


CHRISTIANS  ADOPTED  THE  RED. 


481 


scarlet  and  the  crimson  coma  of  Apollo,84  or  the  flaming 
chiton ,  chlamys,  himation  or  toga ,  believed  to  be  the  trail¬ 
ing  robes  of  Demeter  and  her  red  silk,  flame- clad  daughter 
Proserpine  and  all  the  other  protecting  goddesses  of  labor 
and  its  products.  This  consistency,  in  harmony  with 
Plato  on  the  one  hand  and  Aristotle  on  the  other,  is  borne 
out  alike  by  science,  and  by  trial  of  an  immemorial  du¬ 
ration. 

The  Christians  when  they  afterwards  came,  adopted 
the  red,  wherever  they  planted  among  the  communes ;  and 
in  our  next  chapter  we  shall  show  this  to  have  been  the 
case  at  almost  every  instance,  in  their  earlier  career.  So 
soon  as  priest-power  showed  itself  the  old  white  came 
back;  and  accordingly  we  find  the  white  standard  at  Rome, 
while  the  red  banner  remains  at  Auvergne,  Paris  and 
London,  with  its  gules  in  England  and  its  gueules  in 
France.  Everything  throwing  light  upon  the  subject, 
shows  the  same  preference  of  mediaeval  guilds,  for  red 
among  the  poorer  or  working  class  who  learned  to  adopt 
Christianity  because  unlike  the  old  Paganism,  it  declared 
for  the  gradual  emancipation  of  slaves.  And  they  have 
never  to  this  day,  given  up  their  pristime  banner. 

"We  have  mentioned  the  extreme  antiquity  of  the  red 
color  as  applied  to  ensigns,  symbols,  signs  and  types  of 
the  plebeian  classes.  These  curious  facts  came  down  to 
us  through  the  industry-protecting  priesthood  when  they 
appear  in  histones  and  geographies,  and  through  inscrip¬ 
tions,  when  they  appear  as  relics  of  the  proletaries  them¬ 
selves.  This  priesthood  which  transmits  the  records  of 
the  red  color  is,  so  far  as  we  have  been  able  to  ascertain, 
only  that  of  Minerva,  goddess  of  mechanical  labor  and  la¬ 
borers,  and  Ceres,  goddess,  or  tutelary  divinity  who  con¬ 
trolled  agriculture.36  These  great  mythical  powers,  im¬ 
plicitly  believed  in  for  so  many  ages,  had  different  name 
in  different  countries;  but  preserved  with  a  wonderfu 
uniformity  the  same  functions  everywhere. 

We  carry  the  investigation  to  England,  the  ancient 
Britannia,  now  known  through  cumulative  evidence  of 

M  There  "has  been  found  (see  Encyclopaedia  Britannic  a,  Vol.  II.  Art.  Apollo\  a 
fine  round  bronze  head  of  Apollo  stamped  on  the  silver  coin  of  Cl az omen®, 
preserved  in  the  British  Museum.  This  venerable  midget  is  a  curiosity. 

35  See  Gerhard,  Antike  Denkmaler  with  Tafel>  CXX.  1,  showing  image  of  Cy- 
bele  in  her  chariot  with  lions  and  two  figures  clad  in  the  toga , 


482 


THE  OLD  RED  FLAG. 


comparative  history,  to  be  as  ancient  as  Greece  or  Egypt* 
and  centuries  older  than  Rome. 

Exactly  as  in  the  case  of  Greece  and  Rome,  the  aristo¬ 
cratic  and  Druidical  priests  were  clothed  in  white,36  so 
likewise  the  Druids  of  the  aristocratic  religion,  like  the 
southern  European,  are  found  to  have  been  the  most 
cruel  and  bloodthirsty  of  the  ancients,  nurturing  the  prac¬ 
tice  of  slavery  and  the  sacrifice  of  human  beings.  In  fact 
these  abominable  atrocities  were  found  later  by  the 
Romans  to  so  far  surpass  their  own  spirit  of  cruelty 87  that 
they  sent  x\gricola  to  their  fastness  in  the  island  of  Mona 
with  an  army,  wlio  so  completely  destroyed  them  that  they 
never  again  arose  to  become  a  great  power.  The  account 
of  the  ferocity  of  this  ancient  aristocratic  priest-power  of 
the  Druids,  in  their  methods  of  human  sacrifice  is  too 
shocking  to  be  recounted.38 

But  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  priests  of  the  state 
religion  of  ancient  England  were  clad  in  white,  the  com¬ 
mon  or  popular  faith  was  that  of  sun-worship.  Apollo, 
with  all  his  relationship  by  similarity  of  functions,  to 
Ceres,  on  the  one  hand,  and  Minerva  on  the  other,  was  a 
protector  and  patron  of  industry  by  reason  of  his  being 
the  sun  himself.  He  blazed  forth  with  wondrous  beams 
of  crimson  over  old  England  as  well  as  Europe  and  Asia, 
and  was  early  the  myth  of  that  land  and  its  people.8* 
Perhaps  there  were  two  sets  of  opinions,  one  opposing  the 
other  among  the  Druids. 

This  blazing  Phoebus,  with  his  transcendental  effulgence 
had  to  be  imitated  in  the  symbols  of  human  labor;  and 
how  to  make  the  crimson  dyes  of  his  train  of  deities  was 
no  small  matter.  But  here  the  land  of  the  Britons  comes 

36  Hughes.  Horae  Britannicae ,  Vol.  I.  p.  158 :  “  The  Druid  priest  wore  a  white 
robe,  and  the  bard  sky-blue  but  the  Ovati,  green.  These  different  colours,  were, 
the  first,  the  emblem  of  purity  and  peace ;  the  other,  of  truth,  and  the  lact,  the 
verdent  dress  of  nature,  in  the  meads  and  woods.”  They  sacrificed  human  beings 
and  white  bulls 

87  Campbell,  Political  Survey ,  I.  p.  525  ;  III.  p.  292  ;  IV.  pp.  476,  480,  Wm. 
Camden,  Britannia ,  Druidts;  Borlase,  Cornwall. 

38  We  refer  the  reader  to  Hughes,  Horat  Britannicae,  Vol.  I.  pp.  232-250,  who 
derives  the  facts  contained  in  his  dissertation,  from  Tacitus,  Annales,  XIV.  cap. 
29,  for  the  Ilritons  and  Lucan,  for  the  grove  of  sacrifice  at  Marseilles  in  Gaul, 

39  Consult  Idem ,  p.  261.  The  Stonehenge  Britons  were  sun-worshipers ;  that 
is,  they  deitied  the  god  of  blaze.  Minerva  was  their  protectress  of  invention  and 
manual  labor.  Stonehenge  appears  to  have  been  an  enormous  temple,  built  of 
heavy  rocks  and  fashioned  in  a  simi-circle,  having  no  roof.  For  a  full  descrip¬ 
tion  of  Stonehenge,  its  structure  and  its  surrounding  influences,  see  idem,  pp 
258-26:. 


RED  DYES  MADE  OF  BRITISH  TIN.  483 


in  for  a  share  of  our  observation ;  for  it  furnished  the  tin 
of  which  the  dye  was  made.  After  the  Phoenicians  found 
the  tin  mines  of  Cornwall  and  the  Scilly  Isles  (the  cas-si- 
terides),  red  colors  were  mostly  produced  in  Sidon  and 
Tyre,  their  southern  home. 

Now,  without  enlarging  upon  this  matter  as  touching 
the  earlier  use  of  the  red  colors  of  England  and  the  origin 
of  the  British  gules ,  let  us  look  at  the  phenomenal  mam 
ner  in  which  the  habit  of  red  colors  has  clung  to  these 
people.  Every  one  familiar  with  the  heraldic  symbols 
has  observed  the  frequent  mention  of  the  gules.40  This, 
during  the  mediaeval  age,  was  a  favorite  color  with  the 
common  people. 

It  would  be  well  to  show,  in  company  with  the  English 
guilds,  those  also  of  the  French,  who  are  derived  from 
the  ancient  Gauls.  The  reason  of  this  is,  that  the  trade 
union  system  of  the  Homans,  elsewhere  elaborately  de¬ 
scribed,  struck  into  England  about  the  same  time  that 
it  was  popular  in  Gaul;  and  as  the  unions  used  the  ban¬ 
ner  at  Rome,  the  practice  extended  to  Britain  and  Gaul. 

The  Crispins,  who  founded  the  order  of  shoemakers  at 
Soissons,  are  the  first  unions  we  know  of  in  the  north  of 
France.  The  story  of  the  brothers  Crispin  and  Crispinius 
belongs  to  the  bloody  days  of  Diocletian41  whose  terrible 
persecution  of  the  early  Christians  added  them  as  victims 
of  martyrdom;  and  they  have  ever  since  been  the  tutelary 
divinities  or  patrons,  guarding  the  shoemakers’  art — an¬ 
other  example  of  the  power  of  superstition  to  perpetuate 
itself  through  the  generations.  So  the  shoemakers  took 
the  red  fiag;  for  we  have  a  beautiful  illustration  of  the 
color  of  the  shoemakers’  flag  in  the  province  of  Auvergne, 
given  us  by  Bouillet,  in  which  are  massed  numbers  of 
banners  that  were  used  by  many  trade  organizations  dar¬ 
ing  the  middie  ages  down  to  their  suppression  in  178'.’*. 43 

<o  See  Encyclopaedia  Britannica ,  Vol.  XI  p.  616,  9th  edition,  Art  Hera-dry; 
Here,  in  a  cut  (fig.  3),  in  which  9  escutcheons  are  represented,  3  are  of  a  red 
color,  one  being  a  genuine  gules.  The  art  of  dyeing  brilliant  colors  is  very  an¬ 
cient.  The  chasuble  or  red  mummy  cloth  found  A.  1).  1295  now  in  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral,  London,  which  is  ‘■‘purpureo  aliquantulum  sun  guinea,’’  proves  that  the 
oiler  Phoenix  purple  was  blood  red.  Comp  idem,  Vol.  XVIII.  p.  817.  The 
celebrated  tin  dyes  of  the  Phoenicians  owed  much  to  Britain.  Consult  Hughes, 
Horce  Britannicce,  Vol.  I  p.  47.  It  colored  the  finest  textiles  a  pure  red  This 
was  going  on  long  before  Abraham  or  the  Trojan  war ;  and  Britain  yielded  the 
tin  for  the  scarlet  dyes. 

41  Consult  chapter  xi.  pp.  372  388,  of  our  History  of  the  Ancient  TradeUnicns . 

42  Histoire  d**  Communites  des  Arts  et  Metiers  de  l’  Auvergne,  Accompap***  *** 


484 


THE  OLD  RED  FLAG. 


The  cordonniers  or  shoemakers,  of  the  middle  ages  and 
down  to  their  suppression,  were  in  all  respects  the  same 
as  in  A.  D.  280,  when  founded  by  St.  Crispin  and  his 
brother,  who  are  said  to  have  stolen  the  leather  or  raw 
material  in  their  zeal  to  make  shoes  for  the  poor.  They 
even  retain  the  same  name.  They  held  the  same  day  of 
the  same  year  (October  25th),  for  their  feasts,  parades 
and  conventional  jubilees,  and  carried  the  same  red  ban¬ 
ner.  This  is  the  flag  which  the  law  of  Theodosius  excused 
on  account  of  the  men  having  been  guilty  of  no  wrong, 
and  having  always  been  “  found  peaceful,  pious  and  up¬ 
right.”43  The  French  called  the  flag  or  standard-bearei 
of  these  unions  a  porte-banniere ,  the  Romans  a  signifer ; 
These  banner-bearers  or  more  probably  banner  makers 
had  a  union  by  themselves;  for  a  magistrate  or  president  is 
found  in  an  old  inscription,44  bearing  words  to  that  effect. 
Returning  to  the  trustworthy  member  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor  and  of  the  Institute,  M.  Bouillet,  we  find  him  pre¬ 
senting  the  red  flag  of  the  shoemakers  of  the  middle  ages 
and  later,  categorically  somewhat  as  follows: 

In  Auvergne,  city  of  Brioude  with  its  antique  social 
curiosities  and  its  communal  college,  the  shoemakers  had 
their  union  amalgamated  with  the  tanners,  glove  makers, 
furriers  and  cobblers.45  Their  banner,  alike  for  these 
four  trades,  was  all  blood  red,  except  a  border  of  gold  and 
a  gilt  fox’s  pelt  hanging  in  the  center.  The  staff  was 
gilt  and  hung  with  beautiful  tassels.  An  exquisite  pic¬ 
ture  of  this  banner  is  given  in  plate  33,  fig.  2. 

In  the  old  town  of  Ambert,  department  of  Puy  de 
Dome,  the  shoemakers  were  amalgamated  with  the  saddle 


Bwnnibres  que  portaient  cts  Communautts  avant  1789.  Par  J.  B.  Boniliet,  Parte, 
1857. 

43  Codex  Tkeodosii,  Notul.  Gothof.  leg.  2,  tit.  viL  lib.  XIV.  De  Excusationibua 

Anificum.  “  Signiferi, . qui  scilicet  signa,  et  in  his  deorum,  ferebant  in 

pompis,  festis,  ludicris  gentiiiciis.”  etc. 

44  Murat  orius,  Thnowrus  Veterum  Inscriptionum,  25,  50;  Granier  Uistolre  det 
Ckma  Ouvri'eres,  p.  823 ;  “  Venerable  corps  des  ro.aitres  porte-bannieres  aux 
fetes,  et  de  leurs  nonbreux  vari6tes,  depute  les  signiferi ,  qui  sont  le  genre  jnsqu’ 
anx  CG.nto.br arii  qui  sont  1*  espdce.”  Comp.  Orel!.  Incriptionum  Latinarum,  Cob 
lectio.  No.  4,282. 

45  Bouillet,  Comrnunantts,  p.  109.  describes  the  relations  of  the  shoemakers 
*>ftli  the  cobblers  as  follows:  ‘‘On  comprendra  facilement  qu’il  a  du  arnver  do 
vives  contestations  entre  les  deux  corua  de  metiers,  de  cordonniers  et  de  save- 
tiers;  les  uns  achetaient  des  bottes  on  lies  souliera  vieux,  les  autres  confection- 
naient  certains  articles  de  leur  6tat,  hors  des  conditions  prescrites  par  lenr  r&gle- 
ment,  aus3i  les  cours  et  tribunanx  entendirent  sonvent  leurs  griefs  pour  ces  faits 

ponr  les  visites  des  uns  cliez  les  autres.’’ 


CRIMSON,  THE  SHOEMAKERS'  COLOR.  485 


and  bridle  makers.48  Their  ensign,  shown  in  plate  12,  fig. 
1,  was  of  the  same  shape  as  that  of  Brioude  ;  about  one- 
half  of  the  surface  of  the  canvass  within  the  border  was 
of  a  brilliant  red  color.  The  whole  banner  was  red,  blue 
and  gold. 

An  exquisite  red  banner  was  that  of  the  shoemakers  of 
Clermont.  In  the  center  of  a  similarly  escutcheon-shaped 
canvass  is  a  shoe-knife  witli  gilt  handle  and  steel  colored 
blade  of  nearly  the  same  shape  that  we  see  to-day  in  any 
shoeshop.  A  gold  border  shiningly  fringed  the  whole, 
except  the  top  and  like  the  others,  the  standard  and  tas¬ 
sels  were  gilt.  All  the  canvass  is  a  flaming  red.  It  pre¬ 
sents,  indeed  a  beautiful  exhibit  of  the  old  French  ori- 
jiamme  and  the  older,  pre-Christian  FLAG  and  flamma 
which  we  have  described  as  the  ensign  hues  of  the  work¬ 
men’s  goddesses,  so  familiar  and  so  endeared  to  the  Latin 
lowly  race.47 

The  ancient  city  of  Nemetum  and  seat  of  the  Caesars, 
Augustonemetum ,  which  was  one  of  the  early  Christian 
centers  (A.  D.  250),  became  the  Clermont-Ferrand  of  the 
present  day.  Here  the  collegia  and  communes  of  the 
early  Christians  long  ago  planted  and  always  maintained 
themselves  even  through  the  persecutions  of  Diocletian 
and  Maximian.  No  place  seems  to  have  more  warmly 
cultivated  the  ancient,  or  rejected  the  innovations  of  mod¬ 
ern  life,  than  Clermont.  The  foregoing  description  of 
the  shoemakers  of  Clermont  is  given  by  Bouillet.48  Momm¬ 
sen,  in  his  history  of  Rome,  makes  this  volcanic  and  ster- 

**  Idem,  p.  110,  and  plate  12  lie  1,  “  Lear  bannidre  portal* : 

“  Tierce  cn  pal :  a  bordure  de  gueules,  a 
nn  comeau  a  ptea  d’orgent,  einmanckd 
d’  or  etc.,  ?.t  vz  3  3’  or,  a  une  bride 
de  cheval  de  gueules 

n  It  may  be  weil  here  to  quote  some  of  the  definition  of  the  English  gules , 
French  gueules,  Latin,  ou?ae  b°caxise  though  somewhat  rare,  they  appear  in  an¬ 
cient  and  mediaeval  heraldry:  Stormouth,  English  Dictionary :  Gules,  noun, 
plural,  pronounced  gulz.  [French  gueules,  red  or  sanguine  in  blazon—  lrom 
gueule,  mouth,  the  throat.',  in  heraldry,  a  term  denoting  red,  represented  in  en¬ 
gravings  in  upright  lines.’’ 

\\  orcester,  English  v^uioaa.-y.  (Unabridged),  defines  it  thus:  Gules,  (gulz, 
n.  Fr.  gueules.—- L,  gula  the  threat:  or  the  Ar.  gula,  a  rose,  Fairholt — “  Corrup¬ 
tion  of  gueules.  red  Fr,  which  is  probably  from  the  Pers.  guhl,  a  rose.” 

Webster.  English  Diniojiary ,  (Unabridged  ;  “Gules,  (gulz),  n.  [Fr.  gueules, 
from  Lac.  gula,  reddened  skin].  (Her.)  A  red  color— intended,  perhaps,  to  rep¬ 
resent  courage,  animation  .‘.iidinood,  and  indicated  in  engraved  figures  of 
escutcheons  and  the  like,  uy  straight  perpendicular  lines.” 

48  Doublet,  Communautis  d’ Auvergne,  plate  11,  fig.  3.  On  p.  110,  is  the  de¬ 
scription  as  follows ;  “  A  Clermont :  De  gueules,  a  uh  tranchet  a  lame  d*  argent 
emmanene  d’  or.” 


486 


TEE  OLD  RED  FLAG 


ile  region  of  Auvergne  an  example  in  proof  that  the  intro¬ 
duction  of  modern  innovations  would  result  in  the  place 
becoming  uninhabitable/*  although  it  has  withstood  many 
misfortunes,  natural  and  ecclesiastical,  and  is  yet  a  pop¬ 
ulous  and  thriving  region.  Here,  where  ancient  customs 
have  so  tenaciously  clung,  we  find  them  near  the  close  of 
the  last  century,  still  with  their  flaming  red  banner;  and 
no  amount  of  prejudice  could  change  the  working  people 
from  its  use  at  the  feasts  and  parades,  just  as  they  were 
doing  in  the  days  of  Socrates  or  Tiberius  Gracchus. 

One  banner  was  a  flaming  red  without  a  spot  or  blemish 
of  any  other  color  except  in  the  center,  where  stood  the 
Virgin  Mary,  dressed  in  silver  gray,  holding  in  her  arms 
the  naked  infant.  It  symbolizes  the  peaceful  handicraft  of 
the  shoemakers,  carders,  weavers  and  several  others. 
This  central  picture  of  the  Madonna  or  Notre  Dame,  hold¬ 
ing  the  new-born  child,  as  represented  on  the  plate,  is  artis¬ 
tic;  and  standing  upon  a  background  of  gorgeous  red,  pre¬ 
sents  with  its  gold  fringes,  its  slender  staff  and  its  tassels, 
an  admirable  piece  of  art.60  Among  the  various  unions 
amalgamated  under  this  banner  were  the  masons;  thus 
showing  the  red  banner  to  have  been  an  emblem  of  that 
trade. 

We  do  not  pretend  to  say  that  all  the  shoemakers  of 
the  mediaeval  ages  used  the  red  flag.  Notable  exceptions 
are  given  in  plates  9,  fig.  2,  of  the  city  of  Maringues,  and 
plate  11,  fig.  4,  of  Riom,  but  nearly  all  of  those  given  re¬ 
tain  this  color.  Out  of  the  eight  shoemakers’  unions  rep¬ 
resented  on  the  plates  no  less  than  five  sported  the  red 
color,  some  of  them  retaining  the  peace  hues  of  the  di¬ 
vinities  unalloyed  by  anything  except  the  device  of  the 
craft,  generally  placed  in  the  center  of  the  canvass. 

In  England  we  likewise  find  the  gules  upon  thousands 
of  escutcheons  from  as  early  as  Constantine  the  Great. 
It  is  there  yet.  The  habit  of  holding  up  the  red  as  a 


*9  History  of  Rome,  (Eng.  trans.),  Vol  I.  p.  62,  qnotee  Dureau  de  la  Malle, 
Economie  Politigue  des  Remains,  II.  p.  226.  In  this  passage  it  is  mentioned  that 
such  sights  as  a  woman  yoked  or  harnessed  by  the  side  of  a  cow,  are  still  of 
common  occurrence. 

50  See  plate  12,  fig.  2,  of  Bouillet,  Histoire  des  Communautis  des.  Arts  et  Metiers. 
The  description  of  the  plate  is  on  pages  110-111,  as  follows  :  *‘A  Montferrand, 
les  cordonniers,  reunis  aux  cardeurs,  aux  tisserands  aux  marchands  revendeurs 
aux  hoteliers,  aux  masons,  etc.,  porta'ent  une  banniere:  He  gueules,  a  Notre 
Dame  d’  argent,  courounee  d’  or.’' 


THE  PEACE-BANNER  STILL  WAVING  487 


symbol  of  some  tutelary  divinity — nobody  knows  wliat 
because  everybody  has  forgotten — clings  to  the  British 
Isles  with  a  stubborn  tenacity  to  this  dav.  How  comes 
it  that  the  military  coat  is  red  ?  That  French  soldiers  in 
parade  look  like  a  prairie  on  fire?  That  in  blazonry  the 
standards,  and  in  shipping,  the  streamers,  pennons,  jacks 
and  merchant-standards,61  especially  those  representing 
peace,  so  many  are  of  this  color?  The  reasons  for  it  are 
two-fold.  First,  they  are  the  most  conspicuous  and  beau¬ 
tiful  and  consequently  the  best.  As  proof  of  this  we 
find  in  America  and  elsewhere  the  blood -red  storm  sig¬ 
nals,  in  Switzerland  the  red  arms,  in  Denmark,  Great 
Britain,  Norway,  Turkey,  Morocco,  Peru,  Chili,  Bolivia 
and  many  other  countries,  the  red  merchants  flags  and 
ensigns ;  red  occupying  almost  the  entire  surface  of  the 
canvass.  So  also,  the  British  jack. 

In  the  next  place,  these  were  the  colors  originally  em¬ 
ployed  to  represent  the  same  object  in  ancient  times  when, 
in  the  imagination  of  men,  red  was  believed  to  be  holy 
like  the  gorgeous  streams  of  light  from  the  rising  or  setting 
sun,  which  shaped  itself  on  the  simple,  primeval  mind,  into 
an  omnipotent  being  with  human  form,  like  Apollo  and 
Ceres,  who  were  believed  to  be  guardians  of  labor  and 
its  products.  If  then,  it  is  the  best,  is  still  used  because 
best,  and  if,  after  a  trial  of  an  aeon  of  time  it  be  found 
that  the  lowly  class  thus  symbolized  by  it,  judged  rightly 
ten  thousand  years  ago,  and  have  preserved  it  in  their 
unions  and  hearts  through  this  long  period,  can  there  be 
any  consistency  in  a  paltrj",  time-serving-prejudice  or  its 
tricks  and  intolerant  schemes  against  it?  We  leave  this 
question  to  science. 

We  are  told  by  antiquarians  that  when  the  Romans 
settled  Kent,  called  by  them  Cantiopolis,  large  numbers  of 
the  trade  unionists  came  from  Italy  and  there  established 
themselves ;  and  engaging  with  the  natives  in  the  arts  of 
brass  and  woodwork,  taught  them  the  use  of  the  turning 
lathe  and  other  machinery.  So  we  find  this  section  the 
chosen  nucleus  of  several  trade  unions  at  this  day ;  and 
right  here  and  in  London  an  hour’s  walk  up  the  Thames 


61  See  Encyclopaedia  Britannic  a,  Vol.  JX  pp.  241-245  Art.  Flag.  Let  the 
reader  open  a  late  edition  of  Webber  or  Worcester’s  Unabridged  Dictionary  to 
the  word  flag,  and  his  eye  will  meet  as  it  were,  a  flame  of  lire. 


488 


THE  OLD  RED  FLAG . 


is  where  the  typical  British  gules  is  found  in  greatest 
abundance;  for  the  same  phenomenon  of  transmission 
makes  London  the  bed-rock  of  modern  socialism.  Previ¬ 
ously  to  the  introduction  of  the  mechanic  arts  this  terri¬ 
tory  was  a  wilderness ;  and  the  people  lived  in  tents,  hovels, 
huts  and  caves,  in  the  rudest  state,  almost  without  clothes 
or  houses.  Romans  taught  and  helped  them  to  construct 
habitations,  married  with  them  and  mixed,  as  is  now  be¬ 
coming  known,  planting  among  them  all  their  home  habits 
and  customs.62  Many  of  these  Romans  on  their  long 
journey  through  Gaul  to  Britain,  lingered  on  the  way; 
and  those  were  the  workingmen  who  planted  the  flag  in 
such  places  as  Auvergne ;  for  Romans  were  in  England 
55  years  before  Christ.  We  will  therefore  suppose  that 
if  they  planted  it  in  Auvergne  they  did  so  in  Kent,  and 
having  less  positive  evidence  from  the  latter  we  allow  our¬ 
selves  to  draw  comparisons  by  what  we  positively  know 
of  the  former,  which  was  a  way-station  of  the  Italian  emi¬ 
grants. 

As  we  have  spoken  of  carpenters,  let  us  take  this  track 
in  evidence.  Drawing  from  Bouillet  wdio  has  so  faithfully 
worked  this  territory,  we  find  the  red  banner  to  have  been 
used  by  them  as  follows:  Carpenters  with  patron  Saint 
Joseph  and  with  day  of  celebrations,  the  19tli  of  March, 
(March  was  the  natal  month  of  Ceres,  Minerva  and  Apollo).*1 

Taking  all  the  principal  trades  we  might  suppose  to  have 
been  introduced  into  Kent  and  London  at  the  same  time 
that  they  existed  in  Auvergne,  we  find  that  in  the  latter 
place,  the  bakers’  annual  feast  days  were  in  the  spring  oi 
the  year,  corresponding  to  the  festival  days  of  Ceres,  god¬ 
dess  of  grain-growing,  and  Dionysus  and  the  other  labor 
gods.  Here  we  have  in  Bouillet’s  portrayal  of  the  trades 

62  Comp.  E.  H.  Rogers’  correct  and  able  statement  In  McNeill’s  Labor  Problem 
qf  to-day,  p.  335,  drawing  from  Coote,  Romans  of  Britain.  “Rome  held  posses- 
Bion  of  the  Island  more  than  400  years,  and  it  was  never  abandoned  by  those  de- 
ecended  from  the  Romans.”  Mr.  Rogers  speaks  of  the  mechanics  who  early 
emigrated  to  Massachusetts,  as  the  ‘  ‘Men  of  Kent.” 

»3  Histoire  des  Communautes  des  Arts  et  Metiers  <f  Auvergne,  pp.  80-83 :  “  On 

F>eut  faire  une  6tude  tres  curieuse  du  role  qne  joua  la  charpenterie  milltaire,  dans 
a  seconde  expfidition  de  P6pin-le-Bref,  en  761.  contre  Gaifre,  due  d’Aquitaine. 
Ail  si&ge  qu’i  fit  subir  a  la  ville  de  Clermont,  profltant  de  l'expSrience  des  Lorn* 
bards,  il  fit  dresser  contre  les  murs  de  formidables  beliers,  des  poutres  6norme& 

aui,  mises  en  mouvement  par  des  leviers  et  des  cordages  et  roulant  sur  des  cy- 
ndres,  par  l’impolsion  que  lenr  donnaient  les  charpentiers  et  leurs  habiles  ouv. 
riers,  heurtaient  de  leur  front  de  fer  les  murailles  et  les  mettaient  en  pieces.  On 
peut  le  voir  encore  dane  ,pautrea  ui6gea  qne  soutinrent  Clermont  et  Montferrand 
on  1121  et  1126.” 


COPIED  INTO  MEDIAEVAL  TIMES . 


489 


anions  of  Auvergne,  six  banners  in  red  out  of  eleven 
mentioned  for  the  bakers,  and  the  six  red  flags  were  for 
the  towns  of  Ambert,  Brioude,  Issoire  and  Thiers,  where 
the  flag  was  all  red  except  the  central  device ;  and  Rio  in 
and  Saint-Flour,  where  they  painted  a  part  only  of  its  sur¬ 
face  in  red. 

Turning  to  Depping,64  and  Shepheai  d  who  wrote  a  curi¬ 
ous  statement  on  guild  laws  in  1650,  at  London,  we  find 
that  there  were  unions  in  both  London  and  Paris  during 
the  same  period,  or  from  the  time  of  Constantine  the 
Great;  and  if  so,  the  habits  of  the  people  of  Auvergne 
must  have  been  about  the  same  as  those  of  the  Parisians 
and  Londoners  because  France  was  the  territory  of  the 
overland  emigration  from  Italy.  The  red  banner  appears 
to  have  been  colored  after  the  tutelary  divinities  or  pa¬ 
tron  saints  whose  feast  days  still  corresponded  with  those 
of  the  proto-divinities,  tenaciously  conserved  through  the 
ages,  from  the  myths  by  the  power  of  habit. 

But  we  may  follow  this  interesting  subject  farther,  tak¬ 
ing  the  various  other  trades  together.  Beginning  with 
towns  that  adopted  a  banner  as  their  device  for  arts  and 
trades  in  general,  we  find  at  Langheac,  the  flag  half  red ; 
Chaudesaigues,  half  red ;  Pont  du  Chateau,  half  red ;  Yic, 
Vic-le-Comte  and  Saint  Germain,  largely  red ;  while  many 
of  the  trades  residing  in  these  towns  had  all  red  for  their 
banner. 

In  Mont-Ferrand,  the  carders,  masons,  weavers,  small 
dealers  and  tavern  keepers  had  blood  red.  In  Aurillac 
and  Riom,  the  saddle  and  bridle  makers,  confectioners, 
cheese  handlers,  locksmiths,  shoemakers,  cutlers  and  silk 
workers  all  had  red  and  a  number  a  bright  fiery  color  all 
over  except  the  device. 

At  Theirs,  the  marble  cutters,  glaziers  and  cutters  had 
all  red.  At  Ambert,  besides  the  shoemakers,  already  men¬ 
tioned,  the  saddle  and  bridle  makers  and  weavers  had  a 
red  banner,  or  one  with  more  or  less  red  on  it. 

Clermont  de  Cournieres  and  Saint  Germain-Lembron 
bad  total  red  except  central  device.  So  Saint  Germain, 
the  celebrated  industrial  suburb  of  Paris  named,  as  it  ap- 

54  G.  B.  Depping.  Riglement  tur  les  Arts  et  Mttlers  de  Paris,  this  author  quotes 
4  state  regulation  covering  the  same  period,  which  is  curious  as  showing  the  hon- 
e»ty  of  freednaen  from  tricks  such  as  characterize  the  present  competitive  sys¬ 
tem,  causing  much  adulteration  of  manufactures. 


490 


THE  OLD  RED  FLAG. 


pears  from  this  more  aged  labor-hive  of  southwest  France, 
still  clings  to,  and  fights  for,  its  ideal  red  as  a  tutelary  or 

patron  color. 

The  tutelary  banner  of  Pierrefort,  had  the  top  red  far 
enough  down  to  cover  more  than  one  third  of  its  surface, 
the  rest  having  several  common  colors  but  no  white. 

At  Clermont-Ferrand  the  joiners  had  a  red  plane,  and 
the  marble-cutters  other  similar  red  objects  for  a  device, 
while  at  Brioude,  shoemakers,  tavern  keepers,  tanners, 
glove  makers,  furriers  and  cobblers,  had  each  all  flaming 
red,  and  their  parades,  which  used  to  be  celebrated  on 
the  11th  of  November,  must  have  been  a  sightly  spectacle 
indeed,  all  through  the  middle  ages.  They  were  devout 
Christians  although  their  worship  had  differentiated  in 
course  of  time  from  that  of  Minerva  whose  feast  day  was 
the  same  time  of  the  year,  whose  colors  were  the  same, 
and  whose  cult  had  only  changed  from  that  of  a  tulelary 
heathen  divinty,  to  that  of  a  Christian  patron. 

The  banner  of  the  painters  of  Montaigut  was  entirely 
of  a  blazing  red.  Hatters  and  glaziers  of  Saint  Flour  had 
their  banner  red  at  the  top ;  and  the  hatters,  saddlers, 
tinners,  butchers  and  tavern  keepers  of  Issoire  had  a  great 
red  ring  like  the  sun’s  corona.  Surgeons  and  apotheca- 
caries,  so  well-known  to  have  been  classed  among  the  plebs 
in  former  times,  had  all  red  banners  in  Aurillac.  The 
tanners,  glove  makers  and  curriers  of  this  place  also 
flamed  in  the  same  color.66 

Abundance  of  other  evidence  might  be  here  brought 
forward;  for  the  immense  field  of  Europe  is  scarcely  yet 
entered  upon. 

If  any  one  should  still  contend  that  the  red  flag  or  the 
red  color  was  warlike  and  ant  agonistic  al  to  life  and  its 
peaceful  pursuits  and  labors,  let  him  further  observe  the 
fact  that  in  those  lands  where  the  communes  left  their 
traces  most  plentifully  on  their  inscriptions,  will  be  found 
the  red  banner  to  this  day.  Modern  Turkey  occupies  one 
of  these  localties.  And  what  is  the  merchant  standard  of 
modern  Turkey?  A  blood  red  color  tinges  every  shred 
of  the  canvass  except  an  exiguous  star  and  a  tiny  crescent 


66  See  Index  and  plates  of  Bouillet,  Ifistoire  cUs  CommunauUs  des  Arteset  Mi- 
tiers  dt  L' Auvergne,  where  still  more  material  may  be  found  to  confirm  these 
statements. 


SAME  COLOR  STILL,  FOR  MERCHANTMEN.  491 


moon,  tne  wife  of  the  flaming  Apollo !  Certainly  no  war¬ 
fare  is  symbolized  in  the  peaceful  standard  of  a  merchant 
vessel. 

Morocco,  Algiers  and  Tunis,  the  north  coast  of  Africa, 
once  occupied  by  the  Carthagenians  and  other  colonies 
of  Phoenicians,  still  have  a  flag  which  is  totally  red.  When 
the  origin  of  this  habit  is  traced,  it  will  be  revealed  that 
Baal?  the  great  divinity  of  the  Phoenicians,  whose  attri¬ 
butes  were  the  same  as  Ceres,  whose  colors  were  red, 
whose  home  was  that  of  the  inventive  and  in  genius  dyers, 
and  who  was  the  tutelary  divinity  or  patron  of  labor,  was 
the  huge  sun-god  that  inspired  the  color  by  his  glowing 
beams. 

The  northern  coast  of  Africa  was  colonized  by  the 
Punic  race  whose  name  both  in  Greek  and  Latin  is  the 
every  day  word  for  red.  Both  Turkey,  which  succeeded 
to  Graeco -Phaenician  domination  in  Asia,  and  Morocco, 
Tunis  and  Algiers,  which  succeeded  to  Carthagenian  rule 
and  influence,  still  retain  for  this  peace-color  the  red  in  its 
altogether  unadulterated  state. 

Spain,  the  ancient  Iberia,  a  colony  of  Phoenicia  which 
also  planted  the  red  banner  in  the  land  of  Viriathus,  con¬ 
veyed  this  habit  to  Peru,  where  we  still  find  the  banner 
and  merchant  standard  all  red,  except  a  white  stripe 
through  the  middle.  In  Eygpt  the  peace- standard  is 
blood  red  with  the  exception  of  a  cresent  of  the  moon. 

Great  Britain,  likewise  a  colon}r  of  Phoenicia  so  ancient 
that  the  records  descend  to  us  only  in  the  tin  tincture 
f  urnished  by  her  mines,  of  which  the  red  dyes  were  made, 
preserves  to  this  day  an  otherwise  unaccountable  habit  ol 
displaying  the  red  gules,  and  her  merchant  standard  is  all 
red  except  a  corner  and  even  this  is  partly  red.  The 
Romans  who  later  settled  Britain  only  confirmed  the  same 
habit;  since  the  labor  communes  of  Rome  had  borrowed 
their  tutelary  divinities  from  Asia. 

Thus  Phoenicia  whose  seons  of  antiquity  make  her  the 
proto-nursery  of  man  along  with  central  Asia,  is  alike,  the 
home  of  Baal  w  the  sun-god,  conceived  as  the  male  princi¬ 
pal  of  life  and  reproduction  in  nature,”  56  and  the  mother 
of  almost  all  the  colonies  where  sunbeams  paint  the  fu¬ 
ture  flags  and  banners  of  the  myriads  of  toil  whose  com 

EncycluitUfrltu  b>  Uunnwu,  Yol.  lli.  y. 


492 


THE  OLD  RED  FLAG. 


munal  culture  was  one  of  peace,  equality  and  good  will  to 
man. 

Very  much  more  evidence  might  be  adduced  in  proof 
of  the  red  banner  having  descended  to  the  working  fam¬ 
ily  of  man,  as  a  legacy  from  ancient  usages  religions 
and  beliefs;  and  showing  that  while  memory  and  use  have 
traditionally  adhered,  the  superstitious  reasons  for  much, 
have  long  been  forgotten,  though  the  economical  reasons 
have  remained.  We  submit  these  curious  points  to  fur¬ 
ther  study  by  antiquaries  with  the  remark  that  the  most 
striking  feature  of  these  phenomena  is,  that  feast-days  of 
the  middle  ages  correspond  for  the  peculiar  crafts,  very 
nearly  with  those  of  the  same  crafts  and  same  divinities 
in  the  remotest  antiquity  of  which  we  have  been  able  to 
trace  traditional  and  paleographic  records. 

We  have  constantly  found  the  red  banner  to  have  pre¬ 
dominated  only  in  paths  of  peace;  and  never  outside  that 
domain  except  when  the  peculiar  and  well-known  attach¬ 
ment  of  the  lowly  to  it,  was  taken  advantage  of,  do  we 
find  it  in  war.  So  it  was  used  and  so  it  careered  in  the 
early  colonies  of  the  United  States.  The  early  flag,  true 
to  the  traditions  of  the  past,  was  of  a  blazing  red  color  in 
Massachusetts,57  in  New  York,  and  probably  in  everyone 
of  the  thirteen  original  states.  It  was  the  flag  used  by 
General  Washington  at  the  onset.  When  the  war  of  the 
revolution  broke  out  it  was  a  beautiful  red,  with  the  old 
merchantman's  ensign  of  the  union  jack — a  peace-token— 
and  men  of  peace  suddenly  found  themselves  compelled, 
in  the  absence  of  a  war-flag,  to  float  the  red  ensign  amid 
the  clank  and  din  of  cruel  strife.  It  was  the  flag  of  Lex¬ 
ington,  of  Bunker  Hill,  of  Ticonderoga ;  and  in  its  center 
shone  the  patriotic  motto  “Liberty  and  union.”  A  glance 
at  the  newspapers  of  those  days  best  reveals  these  data 
But  those  men  were  struggling  for  the  right  of  free  laboi 
like  the  men  of  old.  These  facts  rather  stultify  the  pre¬ 
vailing  notions  against  the  old  red  banner. 

67  See  American  Cyclopaedia,  1883,  Vol.  VII.,  pp.  250-S51  :  “In  the  ba¬ 
ginning  of  the  revolution  a  variety  of  flags  was  displayed  in  the  revolted 
"domes.  The  ‘union  flags'  mentioned  so  frequently  in  the  newspapers  of 
1774  were  the  ordinary  English  red  ensigns  bearing  the  union  jaok."  The 
tug  “displayed  by  Putnam  on  J  uly  18th  .following  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill), 
was  red,  with  ‘Qui  tranatullit  sustinet’  on  one  side  and  on  the  other;  'An 
%  l  peal  to  tteaven.'  ” 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

THE  TRUE  MESSIAH. 

FOUNDERS  OF  GREAT  INSTITUTIONS  COMPARED 

How  the  Real  Messiah  found  Things  at  His  Advent  on  Earth — 
Palestine — Syria — Rhodes  and  the  Islands — Suffering  Con¬ 
dition  of  Labor — Seeds  of  the  Revolution  already  Sown — 
Further  Analysis  of  the  Condit  ions — The  Eranoi  and  Thiasoi 
—  Orgeons  and  Essenes — Falsehoods  regarding  the  Bacchantes. 

After  417  years,  from  the  strike  of  the  20,000  miners 
and  artisans  at  the  Laurian  mines  in  Greece,  and  70  years 
from  the  last  strike-war — that  of  the  gladiators  under 
Spartacus  in  Italy — there  arose  an  orator  out  of  the  labor¬ 
ing  class,  who  in  Judea  in  an  open  air  meeting,  probably 
before  a  great  assemblage,  told  the  world  that  resistance 
to  evil  by  means  of  bloody  uprisings,  was  fraught  with 
failure.  Undoubtedly  having  in  mind  those  terrible 
scenes  we  have  pictured  in  these  chapters,  this  foremost 
of  orators  and  teachers  proclaimed  at  the  mass  meeting 
these  words: 

“  Ye  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said  (by  them  of  old 
time),  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth ;  but  I  say 
unto  you  that  ye  resist  not  evil  but  whosoever  shall  smite 
thee  on  thy  right  cheek,  turn  him  the  other  also.”1 
Strange  words !  Inapplicable  to  this  seething  world. 
They  were  intended  for  some  microcosm;  some  perfected 
state — the  realized  heaven  on  earth.  In  the  competitive 
world  to-day,  Christian  as  it  pretends  to  be,  the  old  fight¬ 
ing  eye  for  eye  and  tooth  for  tooth  prevails,  ever  will  pre- 


t  Matthew,  V.  88-89. 


494 


PA  LE STINE. 


vail;  to  talk  otherwise  is  absurd  except  in  the  deep  pene¬ 
tralia  where  that  heaven  is  realized. 

By  taking  these  strange  words  in  the  light  of  true  so¬ 
cial  science  and  reasoning  upon  their  meaning  from  the 
point  of  view  in  which  these  pages  are  written,  we  may 
perhaps  understand  their  import.  Otherwise  the  task 
is  difficult.  Nations  continue  to  demand  an  eye  for  an 
eye.  Communities  do  the  same.  Even  families,  despite 
their  consanguine  ties,  cannot  but  continue  to  enslave 
and  often  destroy  each  other.  Individuals  stand  over- 
against  each  other  in  mocking  and  bitter  competition, 
the  shrewdest  or  most  favored  survive  while  the  majori¬ 
ties  languish  and  fail. 

Jesus  when  he  said  these  words  was  in  the  act  of  creat¬ 
ing  an  association;  and  that  association  actually  contin¬ 
ued  for  300  years  practicing  the  precepts  of  its  founder. 
It  was  no  new  thing.  It  had  existed  for  centuries  before; 
it  existed  then.  What  he  did  was  to  bring  out  into  the 
open  world  that  which  had  so  long  been  secret. 

It  was  at  a  moment  when  such  doctrines  were  compre¬ 
hensible  to  the  masses.  Notions  of  the  Messiah  existed 
everywhere  and  the  deep  religious  tinge  was  indispen¬ 
sable.  The  irascible  world  had  many  a  tilt  with  the  ter¬ 
rible  monster  of  competition  whose  religion  had  been 
deeply  based  upon  human  slavery  and  the  grasp  for  acqui¬ 
sition  was  still  so  strong  that  although  the  principle  of 
equality  and  hence  of  emancipation  of  labor  from  its  de¬ 
gradation,  has  never  even  to  this  day  been  relinquished, 
it  did  not  obtain  for  many  ages.  Through  this  great 
movement  a  ponderous,  revolutionary  blow  certainly  fell 
upon  the  old  competitive  system.  But  that  blow  though 
ultimately  fatal,  did  not  kill  the  monster  on  the  spot.  He 
still  lingers  and  is  to-day  struggling  in  a  temporary  hope 
and  exultation  although  nearly  2,000  jears  have  elapsed 
since  the  word  went  forth  against  him. 

It  cannot  be  considered  in  any  other  light  than  that 
the  revolutionary  events  treated  in  foregoing  chapters, 
followed  by  the  enormous  wave  of  reform  of  the  early 
Christians,  produced  a  tremendous  syncope  or  swoon; 
that  an  atrophy  supervened;  and  that  they  benumbed  the 
whole  social  organism  of  the  great  Indo-European  race. 
The  dark  ages  into  which  our  race  sank,  after  the  adop- 


THE  WORLD'S  GREAT  FAINTING  SPELL.  495 


tion  of  Christianity  and  its  ratification  and  legalization 
by  Constantine  must  ever  be  considered  a  phenomenon 
under  any  other  reasoning  than  that  this  task  it  under¬ 
took  was  too  prodigious  for  its  powers.  AEons  of  time 
were  necessary  to  accomplish  so  vast  a  revolution.  To 
overwhelm  the  great  aristocratic  Pagan  religion  with  its 
array  of  traditions;  to  engulf  and  annihilate  its  obstinate 
cult;  to  emancipate  the  two-thirds  majority  on  whose  ill- 
paid  labor  it  had  feasted,  glutted  itself  and  grown  mon¬ 
strous  in  bulk  and  arrogance,  was  a  task  so  profound  that 
although  actually  undertaken,  it  caused  a  reaction,  rolling 
up  moral  and  intellectual  billows  so  high  that  the  ages 
and  the  nations  were  swept  into  a  terrible  jargon  of  dog¬ 
mas  tyrannies  and  bloody,  inquisitorial  intolerance  which 
destroyed  the  virility  of  the  race  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years.  And  even  now,  after  so  many  centuries,  the  end 
of  the  convulsions  is  far  off,  though  hopefully  approach- 
ing. 

All  struggles  embracing  deep  principles  are  attended 
by  qualms,  swoons  and  upheavals.  The  numberless  com¬ 
batants  who  fell  back  in  the  swooning  period  that  settled 
upon  the  human  race  after  the  Council  of  Nice  with  its 
mongrel  Christianity,  its  idolatry,  priestcraft  and  despot¬ 
ism,  are  emerging  with  higher  hopes  and  broader  views ; 
their  armor,  the  mechanics  of  their  own  invention,  redu¬ 
plicated  by  their  own  labor,  wielded  by  their  own  hands 
and  brain  and  their  manhood  cleared  of  doubts  and  su¬ 
perstitions — those  deadly  misgivings  of  the  ancients.  No 
one  to-day  asks  more  than  Jesus  did ;  for  equal  liberty, 
universal  freedom  and  common  ownership,  with  his  sub¬ 
lime  love  and  inter-care  are  quite  enough.  Squadrons 
innumerable  thus  armed  and  outfitted  are,  in  our  bright, 
regenerate  century,  returning  to  the  conflict  against  the 
aged,  competitive  and  long  successful  enemy  of  equal  ad¬ 
vantages  and  equal  care.  The  conflict  in  this  second  com¬ 
ing  may  be  long,  hopefully  in  our  own  land  bloodless,  be¬ 
cause  fought  with  arguments,  organization,  diplomacy  and 
law. 

We  have  sketched  several  of  the  most  renowned  govern¬ 
ments  and  ideal  governments  of  the  ancients.  They  all, 
having  their  foundation  upon  competition  and  its  natural 
partiality,  turned  against  the  laboring  people  on  whom 


496 


PALESTINE. 


they  fed.  They  failed  and  came  to  naught.  What  there 
was  in  them  of  good  could  not  obtain  because  they  insulted 
and  disrespected  labor  and  degraded  the  working  people 
on  whom  they  existed  from  day  to  day.  Nature  toler¬ 
ated  some  of  them  for  a  fair  trial  but  they  have  disap¬ 
peared  and  are  no  more.  Jesus  came  and  advocated  an¬ 
other  form  based  upon  equality  and  brotherhood. 

But  before  further  considering  the  form  established 
by  the  lowly  workingman  let  us  look  honestly  and  squarely 
at  the  condition  in  which  he  found  things. 

All  Asia  Minor  was  the  scene  of  labor  organizations, 
Canaan  by  no  means  excepted.  The  Phoenicians  who 
boasted  an  antiquity  of  30,000  years,*  occupied  the  land 
of  Canaan  on  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  in  which  country 
Jesus  lived  and'passed  the  greater  part  of  his  life.  These 
Canaanites  appear  before  the  researches  of  modern  archae¬ 
ologists  and  historians  to  have  been  among  the  first  who 
possessed  labor  organizations.  In  giving  a  sketch  of 
several  ancient  forms  of  government,  we  have  simply  de¬ 
scribed  the  competitive  system,  ancient  and  modern. 
Even  the  plans  of  Lycurgus  and  Numa  failed  altogther  of 
affecting  the  revolution  by  which  we  mean  the  complete 
change  from  the  old  Pagan  central  idea  of  slavery  to  one 
of  social  and  economic  equality.  There  was  no  socialism 
beyond  that  of  the  family,  in  the  government  instituted 
in  the  idea  of  common  ownership,  communal  intercourse, 
common  tables  and  impartial  distribution  of  land,  as  ar¬ 
ranged  by  Lycurgus  and  afterwards  shadowed  by  Plato 
and  Aristotle.  Every  idea  of  true  socialism  was  utterly 
neutralized  by  their  hostility  to  laborers.  The  gymnas¬ 
tics  which  took  the  place  of  physical  energy  supplied  by 
well  regulated  labor,  and  no  better  for  the  bodily  health 
and  development,  was  less  natural,  more  straining  and 
far  less  satisfactory. 

In  point  of  true  national  economy,  government  and  la¬ 
bor  cannot  remain  separate.  By  the  governments  men¬ 
tioned,  labor  was  disgraced,  the  laborer  denied  instruction, 
enslaved.  Who  then,  were  the  citizens  ?  Who  the  peo¬ 
ple  ?  An  oligarchy  consisting  of  one-third  of  the  popu¬ 
lation.  An  imperious,  oligarchy  of  landlords.  The  con¬ 
dition  of  Ireland  or  England,  wherever  worst  overrun  and 

*  Africanos,  In  Syncdlns,  p.  31. 


HIGH  MORALS  OF  TEE  WORKERS 


497 


monopolized  by  landlords  to-day,  is  better.  Again,  so  far 
as  the  family  socialism  is  concerned  it  was  still  more  per¬ 
nicious;  for  it  was  hypocritically  an  acquiescence  in  the 
ancient  aristocracy  existing  among  the  highest  class, 
everywhere  in  theright  of  the  first-born  son.  Lycurgus 
recognized  this  arch  aristocracy  in  forbidding  kings  and 
a  few  select  individuals  from  indulging  in  the  voluptuous 
interchange  of  loves.  As  in  the  traditional  Pagan  family, 
the  king  like  the  paterfamilias ,  was  the  breeder  of  kings. 
The  mass  of  the  people  were  left  without  sacred  or  holy 
honors.  By  people  we  mean  the  citizens  and  favored  own¬ 
ers,  or  rather  the  protected,  recognized  and  favored  of 
the  state.  What  lien,  shall  be  said  of  the  workers? 
Summing  it  all  up,  these  governments  were  exactly  what 
they  turned  out  to  be — the  quintessence  of  competitive 
forms,  breeding  disunion  and  corruption,  thus  coaxing  on 
their  own  dissolution. 

But  seeds  of  the  true  revolution  were,  from  the  earliest 
antiquity  inherent  in  the  labor  organizations,  which  dur¬ 
ing  these  abortive  efforts  of  aristocratic  lawgivers  and 
teachers,  quietly  existed  in  the  midst  of  them.  Had  there 
existed  only  a  few  of  these  societies  there  would  be  no  need 
here  of  pressing  our  subj ect.  It  would  be  allowed  to  slum¬ 
ber  forever  unmentioned.  But  they  were  innumerable. 
Comparative  palseography  indeed  finds  a  new  theme 
amongst  them  for  the  dignity  of  the  labor  problem ;  for  it 
casts  a  fresh  and  charming  color  into  the  hitherto  dry  read¬ 
ing  of  annals. 

But  the  fact  that  they  were  so  numerous  as  to  exist  in 
thousands  and  perhaps  millions  and  that  their  quiet  exis¬ 
tence  covered  unknown  ages  of  time,  is  far  less  significant 
than  the  fact  that  they  all  seem  to  have  possessed  the  ker¬ 
nel,  not  of  the  dishonest  and  hypocritical,  but  of  the  hon¬ 
est  and  real  socialism,  such  as  Jesus  and  the  early  Chris¬ 
tians  struggled  to  plant  as  the  ultimate  plan  for  all  men 
to  follow.  They  were  all  certainly  alike  in  helping  each 
other,  in  respecting  and  honoring  labor  and  laborers,  in 
co-operating  for  mutual  aid,  in  a  perfectly  democratic 
form  of  religion  though  they  were,  in  their  credulous  sim¬ 
plicity,  constantly  borrowing  from  the  great  grandees, 
ti  eir  tutelary  deities  or  patron  saints.  Whatever  or 
wherever  their  tutelary  god,  one  thing  is  universally  ob- 


498 


PALESTINE. 


served — an  uncompromising  belief  in,  and  a  practical  de¬ 
votion  to,  the  rougher  forms  of  brotherhood.  They  had 
lived  the  revolution  for  unnumbered  generations  before 
J esus  came  to  sweep  it,  by  one  magnetic  and  amazingly 
omnipotent  stroke,  out  of  its  modest  secrecy  into  the  open 
blaze  of  maddened,  gnashing  public  opinion  and  fling  it 
upon  the  warring  tempests  of  the  aged  competitive  sys¬ 
tem,  the  foundation  rock  of  paganism. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  Jesus  should  appear  to  the 
world  in  Phoenicia  or  Canaan  which  was  at  that  time  the 
wreck  of  the  greatest  nation  of  freebooters,  buccaneers 
and  kidnappers  the  world  has  ever  known.  From  the 
earliest  record  these  people  were  marauders  and  their 
world-wide  successes  legalized  their  daring  and  made 
them  powerful  pirates  by  sea  and  brigands  by  land. 

But  there  was  an  inner  history  of  these  people  which 
the  pen  of  chroniclers  has  left  unsketched.  Great  num¬ 
bers  of  persons  from  all  parts  of  the  known  world  were 
kidnapped  by  their  cruising  corsairs,  brought  to  the 
Phoenician  shores  and  sold  to  the  wealthy  for  slaves. 
These  slaves,  shortly  before  the  advent  of  Christ,  formed 
over  two-thirds  of  the  population.  They  were  maltreated, 
made  to  do  menial  work,  forced  to  till  the  lands,  especi¬ 
ally  detailed  to  perform  all  the  severe  bodily  toil  in  and 
out  of  the  cities,  their  handsomest  youths  were  made  eu- 
nochs  and  apportioned  to  the  service  of  the  ladies  of  high 
estate,  and  their  young  girls,  disallowed  an  education  and 
brought  up  in  slavery  and  dirt,  yielded  not  only  to  labor 
but  became  susceptible  to  the  offers  of  the  unprincipled 
and  voluptuous  among  the  rich.  The  condition  of  the 
ancient  Phoenician  slaves  was  indeed  a  degraded  one.  In 
nearly  all  the  towns  of  Canaan  or  Phoenicia,  Syria  and 
Asia  Minor,  as  well  as  in  the  islands,  slaves  were  the  rule; 
the  free  working  people  *  the  exception.  The  cruel  taint 
which  blasted  the  toiler  extended  its  devil-fingers  beyond 
Greece  over  the  iEgean  sea  and  pointed  at  the  Asiatic 
workman  as  a  mark  for  its  curse.4 

In  Egypt,*  Greece,*  Rome,  Judea,1  Syria,'  Syracuse 

*  Drumann,  Arbeiter  und  Communisten,  p.  24.  “  In  Epidamnos  gab  es  koine 
Handworker  als  die  offentlichen  Sclaven.  Das  Handwerk  is  dabar  verrufen  und 
verachtet  u,  in  mancben  Stadten  den  Biirgern  verboten.” 

*  Plato,  Econ.,  4  and  6. 

b  Josephus,  Antiquities  of  the  Jews,  book  II.  Chap.  v.  8. 


HOW  CICERO  HATED  THEM. 


499 


and  Spain  the  ignominious  punishment  of  the  cross  was 
inflicted  only  on  felons  and  working  people,  often  for  the 
most  trivial,  or  merely  imagined,  or  trumped  up  offences, 
while  the  arch  criminals  of  “  family  ”  were  allowed  the 
noble  supplicium.  This  state  of  things  had  come  to  such 
a  pass  since  the  conquest  of  the  countries  above  mentioned 
that  the  utmost  misery  prevailed  everywhere.  The  land 
was  grasped  by  speculating  Romans  of  court  favor,  who 
were  at  that  time  not  only  numerous  but  extremely  enter¬ 
prising.  Being  of  the  privileged  or  citizen  stock  they 
siezed  the  beautiful  farms  formerly  worked  by  the  indus¬ 
trious  inhabitants,  but  now  under  the  yoke  of  voracious 
conquerors,  and  assumed  them  to  be  their  own.  Instead 
of  free  labor,  slaves  performed  the  work. 

But  labor  had  been  in  sackcloth  and  ashes 8  for  many 
ages,  and  it  required  no  additional  weight  to  make  it  bad 
enough.10  Even  Geliius  who  wrote  laws  to  decide  their  fate, 
seems  to  speak  with  contempt  of  labor  as  though  it  were 
some  noxious  reptile  to  be  hurled  from  his  pen  in  dis¬ 
gust.11  It  is  almost  amusing  to  read  over  the  queer 
whimsicalities  of  our  ancestors  whose  opera  quae  super  sunt 
often  project  expressions  of  petulency  and  of  irritibility 
in  view  of  some  necessary  but  to  them,  ignominious  men¬ 
tion  of  a  class  of  people  on  whose  toil  they  depended  for 
their  very  existence  from  day  to  day.  Cicero,  sneeringly 
said,  when  describing  his  enemy  Clodius,  ranking  him 
with  those  laboring  men,  that  he  was  “  without  credit, 
without  hope,  without  home,  without  goods.” 12  This  in 

*  Guhl  and  Koner,  Life  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  p.  518.  "In  crucem  figerc.' 

I  Cf.  Inscription,  recently  found  at  Naples  containing  the  death  warrant  ol 

Jesus. 

8  Blicher,  Aufstandc  der  Unfreien  Arleiter,  S.  69,  and  elsewhere. 

»  Vide  Sallust,  Jugurtha ,  73,  Also  Dionysius,  B.  C.  476  made  it  lowly  enough; 
Livy,  X.  31.  “Quinam  sit  ille,  quem  non  pigeat  longinquitatis  bellorum  scrib- 
endo  legendoqne,  quae  gerentes  non  fatigaverunt.” 

10  Pliny,  Natural  History ,  IX.  25;  EL.  28. 

II  Quod  genus  Graecii  axdoQopovs  vocant,  latine  bajulosappellamus.”  Geliius 

6,  3,  §.  2. 

ls  Pro  Marco  Coelio,  32.  “  Quare  oro  obtestorve  vos,  judices,  ut  qua  in  civi- 

tate  panels  his  diebus  Sextus  Clodius  absolutus  sit,  quem  vos  per  biennium  aut 
ministrum  seditionis,  aut  ducem  vidistis:  qui  aedes  sacras,  qui  censum  populi 
Romani,  qui  memoriam  publicam  suis  manibus  incendit,  hominem  sine  re,  sine 
flde,  sine  spe,  sine  sede,  sine  fortunis,  ore,  lingua,  manu,  vita  omni  inquinatum: 
qui  Catuli  monumentum  attiixit,  meam  domum  diruit,  mei  fratris  incendit.”  Ci¬ 
cero  here  had  not  the  magnanimity  to  give  Clodius  credit  for  voluntarily  cast¬ 
ing  aside  his  noble  family  and  his  wealth.  Cicero,  when  he  said  that  Clodius 
had  no  family,  well  knew  that  he  was  a  brother  of  Appius  Claudius,  that  he  was 
one  of  the  very  most  powerful  representatives  Of  the  great  gens  “  Claudia” — the 
lime  stock  which  afterwards  produced  emperors.  We  find  little  in  the  family  tc 


600 


PALESTINE. 


his  haughty  mind  was  sufficient  to  damn  them  to  oblivion. 
Occasionally  there  rose  a  character,  so  sympathetic  and 
exalted,  even  in  immoral  Rome,  as  to  be  able  to  dispel 
this  almost  universal  contempt  and  to  give  expression  to 
the  grandest  and  most  truthful  sentiments.  Of  such  was 
the  excellent  Tiberius  Gracchus,  who  a  hundred  and  forty 
years  before  Christ  was  born,  declared  that  w  wild  game 
have  holes;  and  for  eveything  there  is  some  shelter,  some 
retreat ;  but  the  poor  who  struggle  and  die  for  Italy, 
though  they  have  air  and  light,  have  nothing  more. 
Houseless  and  homeless  they  wander  with  their  wives  and 
little  ones.  Those  military  gentlemen  lie,  who  admonish  sol¬ 
diers  against  permitting  workingmen’s  graves  and  sacred 
things  to  be  desecrated  by  enemies ;  for  not  one  has  a 
family  altar  of  his  own ;  not  one  among  all  these  Romans 
a  burial  place.  The  poor  must  struggle  and  die  for  the 
blustering  drunkenness  and  the  corrupted  wealthy  called 
nobility  whom  their  labors  create  and  sustain.”  “  We 
have  hitherto  made  reference  to  Mommsen  who  constantly 
bewails  the  paucity  of  mention  by  great  authors,  of  the 
poor  and  lowly ; 14  but  Mommsen  is  not  the  only  savant 
who  in  rummaging  among  the  musty  relics,  after  such  rare 
gems  in  vain,  sends  up  his  moan  of  regret.  Dr.  Drumann 
repeats  the  same  thing  and  in  blunter  and  terser  terms, 
“  One  searches  in  vain  for  satisfactory  intelligence,”  re¬ 
garding  the  producing  class.16 

Such  are  the  difficulties  the  historian  of  the  ancient 
lowly  has  to  encounter ;  and  were  it  not  for  the  tell-tale 
inscriptions  and  the  musty  old  rescripts  of  law,  the  task 
could  never  be  performed.  But  while  the  most  valuable 
records  of  bold  writers  have  been  left  us  in  fragments  and 
the  more  time-serving  historians  have  shrugged  themselves 
into  silence  fearing  to  face  the  storms  of  public  opinion, 
the  workers  themselves  were  carving  their  own  history  in 
lines  of  amazing  legibility  for  the  far  future  students  of 
ethnology  and  social  science. 

E  raise;  for  he  was  descended  from  the  same  gens  with  Appins  Claudius;  but  if 
e  turned  into  a  friend  of  the  unions,  restored  them,  fought  Cicero  on  tkesA 
grounds,  and  if  he  comes  down  to  us  as  their  champion  and  martyr,  then  the 

whole  labor  movement  must  acknowledge  it. 

!*  Plutarch,  Tiberus  Gracchus. 

n  De  Collegiis  cl  SodalicUs  Komanorum,  p.  41.  “  Quoniam  exignam  tantum 
notitiam  earum  ad  nos  pervenisse  admodum  dolendum  est.” 

15  Arbeiter  und  Communisten  in  Griechenlnnd  und  Rom,  8. 15, 5,  “  BeiriedigencU 
Nach/ichten  sucht  man  vergebens.” 


THE  SECRET  CULT  IN  CANAAN. 


501 


We  now  turn  to  the  labors  of  Jesus  whom,  in  order  to 
be  consistent  with  our  study  of  sociology,  we  must  pre¬ 
sume  to  have  been  what  some  of  the  great  commentators 
and  even  some  of  the  encyclopaedists  now  consider  him,  an 
Essene  or  at  any  rate,  a  member  of  one  of  the  great  orders 
of  secret  associations  so  numerous  in  his  day.  Lest  this 
announcement  appear  untenable  in  the  minds  of  many, 
we  present  our  proof  in  consistent  detail ;  inviting  further 
investigation  on  the  part  of  critics,  in  rebuttal.  Certainly, 
no  harm  can  accrue  from  an  honest  comparison  of  facts 
as  applied  to  lessons  in  anthropology.  In  proceeding  to 
do  this  difficult  task  we  must  acquaint  our  readers  with 
things  as  we  find  them  and  reason,  like  the  physicist,  from 
the  premises. 

We  have  already  stated  that  there  existed  along  the 
Mediterranean  great  numbers  of  palaeographs  mostly  un¬ 
earthed  within  the  present  century.  There  is  still  a  dis¬ 
pute  as  to  what  they  represented.  That  they  are  stone 
slabs,  often  handsomely  graved  in  relievo ,  commemorating 
social  societies,  all  archaeologists  are  agreed.  But  until 
lately  it  has  not  occurred  to  their  learned  expounders  that 
they  were  genuine  labor  societies.  This  however,  is  the 
fact. 

But  while  these  innumerable  palseographs  are  really  the 
work  of  labor  organizations  and  economic  advantages  to 
manual  toil  being  then,  as  now,  the  incentive,  because  labor 
then,  as  now,  was  the  members’  only  capital  or  means  of 
support,  yet  this  labor,  on  account  of  the  taint  and  disgrace 
as  well  as  the  ruffianlv  attacks  it  had  in  those  davs  to  sub- 
mit  to,  was  for  many  ages  the  cause  of  the  societies  and 
their  inscriptions;  and  the  thing  that  lies  constantly  con¬ 
cealed.  But  the  more  popular  and  trivial  issues,  like  the 
paliatory  flattery  of  idol  worship,  the  vain-boasting  of 
prophets,  the  popular  flute  music,  dances,  processions,  and 
burial  ceremonies,  covered  up  the  view  of  labor;  a  palliative 
which  secured  their  permission  by  law,  to  exist  in  Palestine 
and  elsewhere. 

The  common  name  of  all  the  ancient  societies  of  these 
regions,  is  koinon ,  and  the  most  important  of  them,  accord¬ 
ing  to  Jjttders,16  are  the  synocloi  or  synods.  Then  especially 
among  the  Canaanites  are  found  the  traders,  also  known  as 

10  Liiders,  Die  Dionyuuchtn  Kuna  tier,  p,  12. 


502 


PALESTINE. 


synodoi  plethoi  and  symbiosis  philia.  But  of  course  in  the 
widest  sense  the  general  name  of  phratry  stood  uppermost; 
since  whatever  applied  to  it  means  “  union.” 

But  the  name  under  which  the  most  of  them  are  known 
in  Ihe  inscriptions  is  eranos  and  thiasos ,  a  description  ol 
■which  we  have  already  given.  The  eranos,  in  the  Greek 
was  a  labor  or  trade  union.  From  the  Greek,  all  the  social 
societies  of  the  iEgean  sea,  Syria,  Phoenicia  and  Asia  Minor 
borrowed  this  name.  The  same  explanation  applies  to  the 
thiasos.  This  was  an  association  for  common  enjoyment, 
and  is  consequently  considered  by  the  modern  archaeolog¬ 
ists  as  a  branch  of  the  dionysia  or  the  bacchantes.  But 
there  is  great  misapprehension  regarding  the  province  and 
functions  of  the  celebrated  god  Bacchus.  While  people  of 
our  day  associate  him  with  wine  and  drunkenness  the  great 
Numa  Pompilius  provided  for  the  working  people  once  a 
year  at  the  Saturnalian  festivals  of  the  harvests,17  and  dur¬ 
ing  his  wise  and  much  honored  reign  they  were  encouraged 
to  indulge  in  festal  recreations.  The  Saturnalia  was  a  great 
harvest  festival.  Belaxation,  merry-making  and  even  wine 
conviviality  were  so  far  indulged  in  as  to  almost  sink,  pend¬ 
ing  its  duration,  the  inequalities  of  rich  and  poor.  Being 
in  December,  it  was  to  the  ancient  Romans,  what  Christmas 
is  to  the  Christians, 

Now,  considered  as  identified  with  the  manners  of  the 
labor  organizations,  there  is  a  similarity  touching  the  satur - 
nalia  sanctioned  by  Numa.  Tullus  Hostilius  and  even  the 
emperors,  and  the  bacchanalia  which  were  breathing  mo¬ 
ments  of  the  secret  labor  societies.  But  the  bacchanalia 
were  common  in  all  countries  and  the  bacchantes  had  their 
feast  at  any  time  during  the  year.  The  true  cause  of  their 
disreputable  taint  is  not  that  the  feasters  drank  wine  All 
drank  wine,  when  they  were  able  to  pay  for  it ;  it  was  a 
healthy  beverage.  The  obloquy  comes  entirely  from  their 
being  all  lowly  working  people.  They  were  attacked  in  a 
ferocious  and  brutal  manner  and  threatened  with  extinction 
because  they  dared  to  have  an  evening  dance  once  a  month. 

Unorganized,  the  ancient  workingmen  were  powerless  to 
enjoy  even  this;  but  the  force  of  co-operation  or  confrater¬ 
nity  bore  its  fruits ;  and  by  it  they  could  enjoy  their  con¬ 
vivial  s. 


M  Plutarch,  Lycurffut  and  Numa  Compand. 


OPINION  OF  MODERN  SAVANTS.  •  603 


The  thiasos18  was  this  community  gathering,  which  in 
their  marches  and  dances  used  to  wear  beautiful  wreaths  18 
and  sport  red  flags  and  banners.  Tracing  these  societies 
farther  and  clearing  them  of  moral  mud  and  slime  with 
which  yilifiers  of  the  ancient  quill  have  so  bespattered  them 
that  the  word  bacchanal  appears  in  our  vocabularies  like  a 
synonym  of  sottishness,  we  have  a  decent,  well  ordered  as¬ 
sociation  or  union  of  poor  people  who  work  for  their  living ; 
such  as  existed  all  over  the  country  about  where  Jesus  lived. 
Bookh,  cites  an  inscription  of  one  found  at  Tyre  about  20 
miles  from  Nazareth  and  after  deciphering  its  epigraph,  ar¬ 
rives  at  the  conclusion  that  although  it  was  a  thiasos ,  it 
was  not  a  wine  bibbing  institution  at  all. 88 

From  Phrygia  among  the  celebrated  Phrygian  slaves 
there  comes  a  stone  slab  which  Liiders,  in  his  excellent 
work,  •  The  skilled  mechanic  of  the  bacchanal,”  has  lucidly 
described.  We  translate  one  of  his  descriptions.20 

•Above  the  lettering  appears  a  general  picture  of  the 
scene.  On  the  right  sits  a  goddess  in  a  long  chiton  (flow¬ 
ing  robe),  holding  a  large  shell  in  the  right  hand.  In  the 
left  she  holds  a  tympanum ,  the  bottom  resting  upon  her 
knee  which,  together  with  a  modius  upon  her  head,  repre¬ 
sents  her  as  the  goddess  Cybele.  Near  here  sits  the  lion 
which  is  known  to  be  the  favorite  animal  of  the  Phrygian 
goddess.  Besides  the  goddess,  also  robed  in  a  long  flowing 
chiton ,  stands  a  man  holding  a  cithara  on  the  left  arm. 
Over  the  altar  erected  on  his  right  he  holds  also  a  shell.  A 
tree  shades  the  altar.  A  girl  leads  in  a  lamb  for  the  sacri¬ 
fice  upon  the  altar,  and  another  is  playing  the  flote.  An 
aged  female  figure  is  finally  represented  at  the  extremity  of 
the  room  in  the  attitude  of  worship.  Beneath  this  holy  per- 
sonifiation  is  represented  another  scene,  presenting  a  sym¬ 
posium  of  10  persons.  With  the  left  arm  on  the  lap,  they 
sit  on  their  pillows  eating  and  drinking,  and  in  front  of  them 

1«  "  oawtp  wn>  if  airb  rov  irivctr  •wavco-yi}.”  Phot.  82. 

w  w  Polybius  erzihlt  (XX.  6),  dass  dlese  Kranzchen  in  Bdotien  in  grosser 
Bltlthe  gewesen  seien.’*  (Liiders,  Die  Dionysischen  Kilns  tier,  S.  11).  Cf.  Droysen. 
HtUenismus,  11,  83,  f. 

so  Bbckh,  Corpus  Inscriptwnum  Grcecanm.  No.  2271.  “  Thiasos  non  bacchl- 
ous  est.” 

si  Liiders,  Die  Dionysischen  Kunstler,  S.  9,  Tafel  II. 

22  The  word  “  zechen  ”  here  used  for  drinking  by  the  learned  philologist, 
might  have  been  well  enough  for  the  date  at  which  it  was  written:  but  it  is  entirely 
un.iist  now;  tor  it  perpetuates  the  insults  upon  the  po  >r.  This  word  is  evi¬ 
dently  meant  to  convey  to  us  the  idea  that  they  were  eating  and  “  tippling,” 


604 


PALESTINE, 


on  one  side,  Ante  players  while  the  time  with  mnsic,  and  on 
the  other  side  waiters  are  busy  bringing  the  viands  of  the 
table  and  wine  for  the  members.  Two  batons  stand  leaning 
against  the  wall  on  the  right,  on  whose  pointed  ends,  as  we 
may  safely  surmise,  the  bread  is  toasted  and  the  meat  broiled. 
The  inscription  reads  that  the  thiasotes,  male  and  female, 
are  in  the  act  of  honoring  Stratonica  their  priestess  with 
wreaths ;  and  this  for  honest  service  she  has  rendered  their 
saints  or  deities,  Apollo  and  Cybele. 

Such  were  the  eranists  and  thiasotes.  To  onr  mind,  rea¬ 
soning  from  the  now  provable  fact  that  these  societies  were 
numerous  in  the  land  of  Canaan  in  the  days  of  Christ,  it  is 
quite  certain  that  he  was  a  member  of  an  eranos,  or  of  some 
other  secret  association  like  an  Eleusinian  brotherhood ;  as 
by  his  time,  these  had  assumed  a  cult "  which  was  both 
practical  and  religious.  His  religion  was  monotheistic  but 
he  could  not  have  been  more  devout 

But  we  have  promised  to  thread  the  eranoi  farther,  that 
there  may  remain  no  doubt  regarding  their  influence  or 
their  age  and  numbers.  Having  stripped  the  bacchic  thiasos 
of  its  traditional  terrors,  we  come  to  inquire,  with  Liiders, 

whereM  the  solemnity  of  the  particular  occasion  forbids  any  such  rendering  to 
the  inscription.  The  real  oause  of  the  fling  is  the  innocent  lexicographer;  not 
the  faithful  epigraphist.  “  Thiasotai  ”  is  made  to  mean  revellers  or  tipplers.  It 
means  no  such  thing.  The  lexicographers  are  obliged  to  give  definitions  such  as 
the  sense  implied  in  the  historian’s  account,  suggests.  Where  the  fault,  if  any, 
resides,  is  at  the  door  of  the  historian  who  throughout  the  literature  of  antiquity 
has  signalized  himself  as  the  toadying  accomplice  of  the  aristocracy. 

While  therefore,  we  profoundly  respect  the  carefnl  philologist  who,  years 
ago  gave  us  these  treasured  scraps,  yet,  from  a  standpoint  of  sociology,  future 
archaeologists  must  come  to  judge  of  the  meaning  of  words  from  their  self-evi¬ 
dent  premises.  Indeed,  the  direct  discovery  of  Bbckh,  whose  authority  stands 
pre-eminent,  is  that  “  thiasos  is  not  baochic,”  “  Thiasos  non  bacchicus  esL”  He 
makes  this  plain  declaration,  evidently  not  from  the  common  definition  at  all; 
but  because,  on  studying  his  inscription,  he  sees  by  its  general  appearance  that 
though  confessedly  a  thiasos  it  is  far  too  serious  to  be  a  band  of  tipplers. 

8*  Eusebius  says  boldly,  quoting  Philo  (see  chap,  xviii.),  that  these  Essenes 
or  Therapeut*  were  very  numerous  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  Eccles.  lib.  II. 
cap.  17.  Muoh  more  may  be  learnod  from  Philo  Judaeus,  De  Vita  Contemplativa 
and  Quod  Omnis  Probus  Liber ,  12;  Lightfoot,  The  Epistle  of  St.  Paul ;  Collossians 
mnd  Philemon.  This  last  author’s  strioture  against  the  essenes  being  the  order  to 
which  the  early  Christians  belonged,  brings  even  more  proof  of  our  theory  that 
Kssene,  Essenoi,  is  only  a  phase  of  eranoi,  suitably  changed  to  fit  the  Judean  dia¬ 
lects,  of  the  Greek,  and  that  also  it  took  on  phases  to  conform  with  the  Mosaic 
code  in  Palestine  and  Egypt.  A  careful  reading  of  Dr.  Lightfoot’s  Essenes,  idem , 
p.  347,  sqq.  may  serve  to  convince  many  of  this  anology.  “  While  the  Pharasees 
were  the  sect,  the  Essanes  were  the  order,”  (p.  354).  We  say  however,  that  while 
the  thiasoi  were  the  sect  the  eranoi  were  the  order.  Lightfoot  (same  pages), 
speaks  of  their  tenets  being  “of  foreign  origin. ’>  This  is  still  further  proof. 
The  grammatical  structure,  and  how  changed,  is  clearly  seen  on  page  355, 
Eowaio?,  Eacrrji'o?  resemble  0i«<ro?,  Oiacrrivos.  Again,  they  were  baptists.  This 
they  got  from  the  venerable  custom  among  the  unions,  of  the  constant  use  of  the 
baths. 


AN  ANCIENT  SLANDER  EXPL  ODED.  605 


more  about  the  Dionysiscfien  Kuenstler ,  or  Bacchic  skilled 
workmen.  The  Dionysia  at  Athens  were  of  four  sorts,  but 
not  necessarily  connected  with  these  social  communes.  In 
that  country,  in  early  times,  the  Dionysia  were  feasts,  or 
autumnal  jubilees  at  the  vintage.  They  were  amusements 
at  which  the  boys  and  girls  hopped  and  caroused.  Some¬ 
times  they  danced  upon  sacks  or  ollas  filled  with  water,  or 
climbed  the  greased  pole,  or  jumped  and  climbed  on  bowl¬ 
ders  smeared  with  oil  which  by  their  slipping  and  awkward¬ 
ness  caused  great  merriment.  Undoubtedly  the  farmers  at  a 
bee  of  this  kind  sometimes  drank  wine  to  excess.  The 
second  Dionysia  were  feasts  of  the  wine  presses.  It  was 
almost  exactly  equivalent  to  our  Thanksgiving ;  fully  as  re¬ 
ligious  but  less  sedate  and  reverential.  It  was  a  series  of 
banquets  and  festivities  at  which  the  meats  and  dainties  were 
paid  for  from  the  public  purse.  Then  there  were  drinking 
festivities  called  anthesteria  at  which  in  the  spring  of  the  year 
the  citizens  gathered  and  indulged  in  enjoyments.  But  we 
are  not  quite  certain  whether  the  working  part  of  the  popula¬ 
tion  were  allowed  to  attend;  since  citizens  in  Athens,  as 
elsewhere,  in  the  Hellenic  peninsula  and,  in  fact,  wherever 
Greek  was  spoken,  were  regarded  as  above  labor.  Lastly, 
the  great  Dionysia  held  mostly  within  the  city.  They 
consisted  principally  of  theatrical  entertainments  at  the  cost 
of  the  state.  These  again  were  aristocratical  and  had  little 
to  do  with  workingmen’s  organizations. 

The  anthesteria  in  the  month  of  February  and  the  great 
Dionysia  held  in  Elaphebolion ,  month  of  March,  strikingly 
resembled  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries,  to  the  description  of 
which  we  have  devoted  a  chapter.  They  had  secret  sacrifi¬ 
ces  at  which  the  wife  of  the  archon  was  symbolically  mar¬ 
ried  to  Bacchus,  the  celebrated  god  of  plenty.  It  is  quite 
probable  that  the  poor  working  people  and  the  slaves,  in 
their  longings  to  rise  to  enjoyment  and  esteem,  aped  these 
great  aristocratic  orgies  of  the  citizens,  which  sometimes 
were  performed — especially  at  Eleusis — with  a  display  of 
magnificence  only  equalled  by  their  mysterious  secrecy  and 
their  religious  pomp.  Thus,  the  labor  unions  had  nothing 
in  common  with  those  orgies  and  must  not  be  mixed  up 
with  them. 

In  1364,  there  appeared  an  article  in  the  Revue  Archeo- 
logique,  on  the  eranoi  and  thiasoi  of  the  inscriptions.  The 


PALESTINE. 


them*  maintained  that  these  unions  tended  towards  a  cult, 
and  that  the  result  of  their  humble  existence  for  a  period  of 
many  ages  was  an  upward  and  civilizing  tendency.  The 
writer,  M.  Wesoher,  an  archaeologist  who  had  devoted  much 
time  to  deciphering  the  meaning  of  relics  so  curious,  took  the 
ground  similar  to  that  maintained  in  these  chapters,  although 
he  does  not  pre-suppose  that  the  unionists  had  anything  to 
do  with  labor.  This  is  the  strongest  of  all  the  phenomena 
which  beset  the  pen  of  scholars.  Granier  de  Gassagnac 
wrote  his  history  of  the  ancient  laboring  men  from  that 
point  of  view;  and  although  his  exceedingly  scientific  and 
rare  penetration  was  for  30  years  talked  down  by  the  sav¬ 
ants  of  Germany  and  France,  they  are  now  maintained  by 
greater  ones  who  acknowledged  that  they  were  taught  by 
him.  Such  was  also  the  fate  of  M.  Wescher,  who  ventured 
to  suggest  that  the  eranoi,  very  nearly  identical  with  the 
Roman  collegia  or  trade  unions  of  which  Granier  had  made 
his  magnificent  expos£,  were  something  more  than  mere  re¬ 
ligious  sects ;  for  we  find  M.  P.  Foucart  denying  the  truth 
of  M.  Wescher’s  remarks*4  and  in  his  preface,  express¬ 
ing  his  sensation  of  pleasure  at  imagining  himself  able  to 
disprove  Wescher’s  hypothesis.”  One  would  suppose  that 
any  discovery  that  they  were  labor  societies  would  be  hailed 
with  pleasure  by  the  most  critical;  but  the  contrary  is  hurled 
in  his  old  friend’s  face  with  scorn. 

We  feel  an  interest  lively  enough  in  the  little  polemic  of 
Foucart  and  Wescher  to  reproduce  an  example:  Wescher 
examines  the  fraternal  character  of  the  Associations88  in 
these  words:  “  Now  is  it  not  natural  that,  at  an  epoch  of  in¬ 
quietude  and  of  religious  agitation  like  that  of  the  great 
Alexandrian  school,  the  number  of  these  societies  should 
be  considerable?  Ought  we  to  be  astonished  that  many 
men  and  women  abandoned  the  official  religion  which  had 
long  proved  itself  ineffectual  to  free  culture,  arid  to  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  spontaneous,  fraternal  goodness  such  as  re¬ 
sponds  to  the  innermost  aspirations  of  the  heart?  The 
Greek  soil  must  be  considered  the  veritable  cradle  of  this 
religious  movement.  It  will  redound  to  the  inextinguish¬ 
able  honor  of  Greece  for  having  planted  such  examples  in 

■»  Auociationt  Religiemet  dex  let  Greet,  pp.  139-153. 

as  Idem ,  Preface,  p,  14.  “  Une  certaine  satisfaction  et  one  certains  conflance  .' 

**  Revue  ArdUolnpique,  18(56,  II.  pp.  2'20  and  227. 


607 


OPINIONS  OF  SCHOLARS. 

n 

the  world,  before  the  appearance  of  Christianity."  M 
Wescher  continues:  “  The  common  fund  of  the  societies  was 
devoted  to  mutual  assistance  and  assurance,  destined  to  fur¬ 
nish  advances  to  members  in  need,2’  to  provide  for  them  in 
cases  of  sickness  and  defray  the  expenses  of  a  decent 
burial.”2*  Farther  along  he  says:  “The  members  were  a 
mutual  community,  one  with  another;  the  well-to-do  paid, 
the  indigent  received,  in  rotatory  form,  as  the  case  happened. 
Poverty  was  no  motive  of  exclusion.”  This  last  declaration 
is  stoutly  met  by  M.  Foucart  who  says  it  is  based  solely 
upon  an  expression  of  Rangabe.  In  point  of  fact  this  com¬ 
munistic  mutuality  is  the  only  definition  ever  attached  to 
either  the  Greek  words  eranos  or  Latin  collegium  /  He  fur¬ 
ther  quotes  from  Theaphrastus,2®  a  passage  in  rebuttal  which 
substantially  acknowledges  not  only,  that  the  eranoi  were 
mutual  sharers,  but  also  that  the  celebrated  successor  to 
Plato  knew  all  about  them.  Not  discomfited  with  this  in¬ 
consistency  he  drags  up  the  case  of  one  Lseocrates,  an  Athe¬ 
nian,  who  being  about  to  move  to  Megara  sells  his  house 
and  his  slaves,  charging  one  of  his  friendt  with  the  task  of 
paying  and  settling  up  with  his  creditors,  money  he  owes 
and  to  straighten  accounts  with  his  eranos.  It  does  not 
follow  from  this,  that  this  rich  man  was  even  a  member,  any 
more  than  was  Augustus  Caesar  a  member  of  the  many  col¬ 
legia  at  Rome  which  he  patronized  under  the  well  known 
name  of  Collegia  Domus  Augustalis .“ 

The  whole  of  the  matter  is,  that  these  were  poor  working 
people’s  societies  for  mutual  aid.  They  corresponded  very 
closely  indeed  to  our  trade  unions.  They  had  existed  from 
immemorial  times  as  trade  and  labor  societies  for  mutual 
support  and  were  almost  indentical  with  the  Roman 
colegia  on  which  we  have  devoted  a  chapter,  and  regard¬ 
ing  which  evidences  in  inscriptions  and  otherwise,  are  over¬ 
whelming.  Those  poor  people  did  not  work  all  day  at 
wearying  drudgery  and  then  labor  at  night  in  their  unions 
merely  for  religion’s  sake  as  M.  Foucart  imagines.21  They 

«  Here  Wescher  himself  Is  unable  to  understand  that  the  fund  was  for  mem¬ 
bers  out  of  employment,  which  places  labor  at  the  bottom  of  their  organization. 

28  Revue  ArcMologique,  idem ,  p.  226. 

28  Theophrastus,  Ethikoi  Karak teres,  17. 

•"o  Mommsen,  De  Collegii s  et  Sodaliciis  Romanorvm,  Cap.  V.,  Le  Collegiit  lafit 
mb  Iniperiloribus.  The  emperor  Augustus  was  of  course,  not  a  member  of  the 
trade  unions  but  he  befriended,  protected  and  patronized  some  of  their  labors 
while  a  great  many  of  them  he  suppressed. 


503 


PALESTINE. 


had  to  combine  as  the  men  are  now  combining,  to  take 
measures  regarding  the  best  advantage  at  which  they  might 
on  the  morrow,  exchange  the  only  goods  they  possessed — 
their  labor — for  their  daily  bread.  Even  slaves,  when  ah 
lowed,  sometimes  joined,  to  better  their  condition. 

So  much  for  the  eranoi.  The  thiasoi  were,  as  we  have 
described  them,  simply  clubs  of  the  eranoi  who  arranged 
and  conducted  the  little  banquets  and  social  amenities  which 
throughout  antiquity  seem  to  have  made  life  worth  living. 
These  thiasoi  corresponded  to  the  sodalicia  of  the  Romans. 

We  have,  however,  in  our  description  of  the  Roman  trade 
unions,  shown  that  ovvingto  the  severely  restrictive  and  cen¬ 
sorious  laws,  the  unions,  toward  the  commencement  of  the 
Christian  era  were  compelled  to  assume  a  strongly  religious 
and  pious  aspect  in  order  to  prevent  being  suppressed  by 
these  rigors,  after  the  servile  wars.  Precisely  the  same  in 
Greece,  Asia  Minor,  Palestine  and  the  Islands  of  the  iEgean 
Sea;  because  all  these  provinces  from  about  B.  C.  200  had 
become  Roman  territory  by  conquest.  Any  law  touching 
them  at  Rome  in  the  Latin  tongue  was  as  rigorous  against 
them  in  Greece,  Asia  Minor  or  Canaan  in  the  Greek  or  He¬ 
brew.  These  are  the  points  which  the  learned  Foucart  seems 
to  have  forgotten.  He  is  an  expert  as  an  epigraphist  but 
lacks  the  aptitude  of  the  comparative  sociologist.  The 
keen  perception  of  Mommsen  detected  and  cleared  up  the 
mystery  in  his  laws  on  the  Roman  trade  unions.” 

These  are  things  which  seem  strongly  to  support  our 
argument  that  a  spontaneous,  genuine  secret  movement  per¬ 
vaded  the  Greek,  Latin  and  Hebrew-speaking  countries  far 
and  wide  at  this  particular  epoch  of  the  advent  of  Christ. 
The  unity  and  brotherhood  shown  to  have  existed  among 
the  secret  societies  is  almost  touching.  The  more  the  upper 
stratum  of  society  was  distracted  by  the  consequences  of 
the  competitive  system  having  failed,  on  a  trial  of  thousands 
of  generations,  the  more  completely  did  the  brotherly  love 
system  of  the  labor  unions  grow  into  usefulness,  through 
accord  and  mutual  support. 

There  is  an  example  of  this  seen  at  the  Pirseus.  The 
Phrygians  were  considered  barbarians  by  Greeks  and  Ro¬ 
mans.  Their  patron  goddess  was  Cybele.  Liiders  reports 

11  Assoc,  Relig.  Chet.  Let.  Greet.,  passim.  One  comparison  of  them  with  the 
collegia  of  the  Romans  M.  Foucart  finds  this  error  clearly  proved. 

De  Collegiis  el  Sodalicils  Romanorum.  Passim. 


EQUALITY  AND  FRATERNITY. 


609 


that  in  the  Piraeus  alone,  such  was  the  harmony  among  the 
orgeons  and  thiasoi,  who  represented,  apparently  without 
the  least  jealousy  or  dispute,  many  nationalities  there,  that 
the  Phrygians  had  an  especial  temple  standing  close  by  the 
great  temple  of  the  goddess  Metroon,  where  she  was  wor¬ 
shiped  by  the  members  of  a  society  whose  members  called 
themselves  orgeones  and  thiasotes  on  the  inscription. 

It  reads  that  the  decrees  15  and  19  provide  that  strangers 
be  admitted  to  the  society.  One  of  the  officers  is  himself  a 
stranger.  In  the  list  of  officers,  one  is  a  tutelary  soter,  or 
savior  from  Troezen,  and  one,  Cephalion,  from  Heraclia.  So 
also  women  officiated  in  responsible  functions  in  the  same 
society At  the  Pirseus  was  the  thiasos  embracing  the  cult 
of  Serapis;  of  Zeus  Labraundos,  Metroon  and  Cybele ;  of 
Heroistes,  Demos  Oollyte,  Apollo,  Nymph  Lycia  and  others. 
Some  of  the  inscriptions  bear  date  of  B.  C.  324. M  The  fact 
of  their  having  lived  in  their  quiet  fraternal  way  so  many  ages 
organizing,  living  in  common,  teaching  as  they  went,  and 
constantly  inculcating  the  spirit  of  fraternity  as  it  were,  un¬ 
derground,  while  overhead  in  the  great  competitive  world, 
kings,  nobles,  money-changers,  and  politicians  were  fighting 
and  dashing  each  other  against  the  competitory  rocks  of  the 
Pagan  aristocracy,  is  of  itself,  strong  evidence  that  they 
were  the  real  planters  of  a  future  state  which  could  not  ob¬ 
tain  in  the  open  world  without  a  revolution. 

Our  maxim  that  the  greater  the  organization  of  the  la¬ 
boring  poor  into  a  brotherhood  for  common  help  the  higher 
will  be  the  pitch  of  human  enlightenment,  certainly  holds 
good  so  far  as  it  was  able  to  proceed  in  ancient  times.  Its 
corollary ;  the  higher  the  enlightenment  the  more  complete 
the  extinction  of  social  and  economical  grades,  cannot  be 
demonstrated  until  the  associative  energy  expressed  in  the 
premises  has  been  carried  far  enough  against  the  competi¬ 
tive  system  to  reach  a  majority.  When  this  comes  to  pass 
the  conclusion  will  be  reached  that  the  intensity  of  human 
enlightenment  can  be  tested  and  measured  by  the  quantity 
of  social  organization  of  this  hitherto  degraded  stratum  of 
Bociety. 

The  whole  story  looks  as  if  the  offering  of  ignominy,  (A 
Bethlehem,  foresaw  these  three  great  truths  20  centuries 

aa  LUders,  Die  Dionysichen  KUustler.  pp.  14,  15. 

»4  Idem ,  p.  Id. 


510 


PALESTINE. 


ahead,  when  he  boldly  took  up  the  unionist's,  culture  of  a 
dozen  deities,  their  social  methods,  their  fraternal,  interact¬ 
ing  love,  their  meek,  silent  humility  and  secret  work,  brought 
them  grandly  forth  from  their  obscurity,  proclaimed  with 
an  irresistible  eloquence  and  pathos  the  obsolute  equality 
of  man  and  succeeded  before  the  quarrelsome  competitive  sys¬ 
tem,  its  toadies  and  obsequious  devotees,  could  bring  him, 
like  all  the  rest  to  the  gibbet,  in  unifying  all  their  gods  into 
one  god  and  forcing  the  vast  movement  upward  into  view 
and  final  adoption  by  the  world.  The  failure  of  royalty  and 
empire  which  at  his  time  began  to  be  seen  in  the  states  ol 
Greece,  Italy  and  western  Asia,  proved  his  words  that  “  a 
house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand;"  and  this  cele¬ 
brated  apothegm  from  his  lips  is  now  being  used,  perhaps 
more  than  any  other  by  the  labor  organizations  of  the  19th 
century.  Mutual  fraternity  and  arbitration  of  difficulties 
without  resort  to  violence  or  other  overt,  unchristian  acts 
is  proved  by  unions  of  trades  to  be  everywhere  productive 
of  the  most  satisfactory  results. 

The  lines  between  the  followers  of  the  movement  and  its 
opponents  were  definitely  and  very  distinctly  drawn.  He 
that  is  not  for  us  is  against  us."  This  again  has  become  a 
common  maxim  among  the  trade  and  labor  societies  of  mod¬ 
ern  times;  so  much  so,  that  the  investigation  of  the  charac¬ 
ter  of  applicants  for  membership  is  found  necessary  before 
admission. 

The  law  of  Solon  had  provided  for  the  free  organization 
of  burial  societies  among  the  Athenian  poor.  He  called 
them  homotaphoi.  There  were  the  communists  who  en¬ 
joyed  their  meals  at  a  common  table.  The  law  and  the 
language  knew  them  as  sussitoi.  These  also  were  numer¬ 
ous  in  Palestine  and  elsewhere  along  the  coast  of  the 
Mediterranean.  But  it  is  certain  that  they  were  labor 
unions ;  for  Liiders,*7  speaking  in  general  terms  says  that 
the  brotherhood  who  partook  with  each  other  at  the  com¬ 
mon  table  did  this  as  a  moral  custom  and  that  the  custom 
was  common  throughout  the  ancient  world ;  and  in  the 
larger  societies  received  an  especial  character.  There 
were  even  societies  of  privateers,  of  Phoenician  or  Canaan- 

85  Luke,  XI.  17:  Mathew ,  XII.  25 ;  Mark,  III.  25. 

8fi  Mathew,  xii.  BO;  Mark ,  ix.  40. 

37  Dionysch,  Kunstler ,  S  4,  5.  “  Ausser  diesen  kleineren,aii8schliesslich  prl 
r&ten  Zwecken  dienonden  Genosseuschalten  gab  es  Schiffrr—  n  TTandelevereine.” 


HOW  PALESTINE  BORROWED  THE  CULT  511 


fte  origin  of  course ;  for  these  were  the  most  formidable  of 
ancient  brigands  and  freebooters.  But  Solon  also  per¬ 
mitted  such  secret  organization  at  Athens.** 

Liiders  expressly  states  that  there  existed  universally 
an  organization  called  by  the  Greeks  deipna  apo  symboles . 
It  was  an  eranos  or  labor  union ;  and  “  stretched  from 
high  antiquity  into  the  second  half  of  the  4th  century  of 
our  era,  when  at  the  Council  of  Laodicea  it  was  forbid¬ 
den.”89  Our  statement  that  the  eranoi  and  thiasoi  were 
in  reality  one  and  the  same  thing,40  the  eranos  being  the 
labor  or  business  part  of  the  administration,  and  the  thia- 
sos  that  part  attending  to  the  entertainments,  is  fully  con¬ 
firmed  by  Liiders,41  who  expressly  says  their  identity  as 
well  as  functions  were  mixed ;  and  necessarily,  since  the 
eranos  not  only  paid  the  expenses  of  its  own  business  with 
the  members,  attending  to  the  procurement  of  situations 
for  members  out  of  employment  and  to  the  burial  and 
other  expenses,  but  also  helped  pay  the  costs  of  the  con¬ 
vivialities. 

Thus,  the  self-evident  fact  that  the  eranoi  and  the  thi¬ 
asoi  which  were  one  and  the  same  everywhere,  being 
made  apparent,  we  come  to  the  further  proof  of  their  ex¬ 
istence  in  great  numbers  in  Asia  Minor,  Palestine  and 
Syria.  Liiders  remarks  that  from  the  Hellenic  peninsula 
the  organizations  there  planted,  spread  into  the  islands 
and  Asia  Minor  where  their  relics  are  found  still  more 
numerous  than  in  Greece.41  Still  it  is  well  known  that  at 
the  Piraeus  or  seaport  of  Athens,  at  Eleusis  and  many 
other  places,  including  the  Laurian  silver  mines  in  Attica 
they  must  also  have  flourished  in  large  numbers ;  although 
their  tendency  to  cultivate  the  principle  of  universal 
brotherhood  was  frowned  upon  by  the  outside  world. 

We  must  introduce  here  the  quite  singular  but  perfectly 
natural  fact  that  wherever  the  unions  were  thoroughly 
established  and,  so  to  speak,  nested  together,  the  Christian 
church  was  sure  to  first  plant  itself.  Thus  Pergamus,  the 
•eat  of  the  great  uprising  of  workingmen  under  Aristoni- 

»  Vide  B8ckb,  Staatshaushalt ,  I.  762.  Lobeck,  Aglaoph,  p.  306. 

M  Liiders.  Dionysch.  Kunstler,  S.  7. 

«  Consult  p.  455,  chapter  xxi. 

«  Dionysch.  KUnst.,  S.  7.  “  Beide  Arten  von  eranos  scheinen  schon  In  seln 
Wh  er  Zeit  mit  den  thiasoten  Vereinen  vermisoht  worden  zu  Bein. 

Die  Dionysichen  Kitnstsr,  S.  13. 


PALESTINE. 


cusinB.  0.  133-129, 44  became  the  mellow  ground  wherein 
the  early  Christians  planted  and  on  which  they  reared 
one  of  their  most  celebrated  churches.  The  laboring 
people  were  in  trouble  at  the  time  of  this  uprising — one 
of  the  bloodiest  on  record.  They  possessed  organizations 
throughout  the  country  which  they  were  enjoying  in  ap¬ 
parent  peace,  when  they  were  startled  by  that  paltroon 
act  of  Attains  IV.  deeding  at  his  death,  the  whole  king¬ 
dom  to  the  Romans.  Fearing  lest  they  be  seized  by  the 
hated  Romans  and  reduced  to  slavery,  they  unanimously 
joined  the  pretender.  But  there  were  inscriptions 
showing  that  the  Pergamenian  working  people  were  en¬ 
joying  a  thrifty  organization  dating  from  high  antiquity 
down  to  the  coming  of  the  Messiah. 

Cappadocia  which  did  not  fall  into  Roman  hands  until 
A.  D.  17,  was  also  one  of  the  early  posts  of  the  Christians. 
The  first  epistle  of  St.  Peter  bears  this  name.  Here  too 
the  labor  brotherhoods  had  a  strong  foothold.  This  is 
rendered  certain  by  the  recent  discovery  of  several  of 
their  slabs  and  monuments  bearing  inscriptions.  Laodi- 
cia  was  also  a  stronghold  of  both  the  unions  and  the 
early  Christians.  This  place,  together  with  Ephesus  and 
Hieropolis,  is  where  were  founded  the  seven  Apocalyptic 
churches.44  The  early  church  found  mellow  soil  among 
the  brotherhoods  of  the  eranoi  and  thiasoL 

Apamea  near  Antioch,  the  birthplace  of  Eunus,  insti¬ 
gator  of  the  greatest  of  all  the  slave  uprisings,  was  also 
the  cradle  of  one  of  the  early  churches.44  We  have,  in 
our  account  of  this  great  strike  shown  that  Eunus  and 
his  men  seemed  both  to  be  deeply  imbued  with  the  every¬ 
where  present  idea  of  the  Messiah,  who  was  to  redeem  the 
w  >rld,  and  also  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  methods 
of  secret  organization.  His  knowledge  of  the  auspices, 
and  plan  of  organization  were  really  at  the  base  of  his  suc¬ 
cess,  These  things,  added  to  inscriptions  found  in  the 
vicinity  of  labor  unions  of  an  antiquity  coeval  with  this 
great  servile  war,  show  very  plainly  why  Christianity  took 
root  so  readily  in  those  regions  of  Asia. 

<2  See  chap.  x.  p.  242.  AHstonieus,  giving  a  full  sketch  of  the  event. 

«  St.  Paul,  Collossiant,  IV.  15,  alludes  to  it  where  he  asks  that  hie  letter  be 
shown  to  the  brethren  in  the  church  of  Laodicia. 

46  Revelations,  i.  II.  John  here  also  speaks  of  the  church  of  Pergamus  as 

one  of  the  seven. 


NAZARETH. 


613 


Rhodes  was  also  one  of  the  places  where  Christianity 
established  itself,  although  its  successes  there  have  been 
sad.  But  of  all  spots  in  the  world  Rhodes  seems  to  have 
been  one  of  the  most  prolific  in  those  queer  inscriptions 
indicating  a  great  labor  organization  in  ancient  times. 
They  existed  in  great  numbers  on  this  island.43  The 
abundance  of  these  inscriptions  found  in  Rhodes  and  at 
Piraeus,  have  attracted  much  attention  from  the  archaeolo¬ 
gists  of  late.  The  fact  is,  the  societies  being  mostly  era- 
noi  or  labor  unions  and  enjoying  in  common  brotherhood, 
the  scanty  proceeds  of  their  toil,  had  for  many  ages,  pre¬ 
pared  the  ground  for  the  new  plant ;  consequently  it  was 
found  mellow  and  in  readiness  for  the  greater  Messiah 
when  at  last  he  really  arrived. 

But  one  of  the  most  interesting  centers  of  the  early 
church  was  Apamea,  the  birthplace  of  Eunus,  the  great 
slave-king  of  Sicily,  Athenion,  hero  of  the  second  Sicilian 
strike-war,  and  Saint  Paul  the  most  famous  of  the  apostles 
of  Jesus.  This  city,  not  far  from  Nazareth,  was  a  hive  of 
free  labor  organizations  until  stricken  by  the  Roman  con¬ 
quest.  It  gave  birth  to  three  of  the  most  wonderful  char¬ 
acters  of  the  history  of  the  lowly  and  being  warmed  up 
in  the  old  cult  of  the  communes,  easily  became  the  seat 
of  an  early  Christian  church. 

Another  significant  fact  may  here  by  mentioned  that 
Plato  takes  Socrates  down  to  the  Piraeus  among  the  com¬ 
munal  fraternities  of  the  working  people  where  he  and 
his  friends  remained  for  days,  as  it  were,  in  this  socialis¬ 
tic  atmosphere.  They  there  discussed  and  drew  up  the 
whole  of  Plato’s  most  celebrated  work — the  Republic. 
Socrates  was  himself  a  member  and  this  may  account  for 
Plato’s  notion.47 

Summing  up  the  mass,  we  find  five  great  revolutionary 


<6  See  Ltidere,  Die  Dionysitcheu  Ktinttlcr,  8.  87*42  and  elsewhere.  Foucart, 
Let  Astociaiiont  Religieuses  chet  let  Greet,  chap.  xii.  “  Les  associations  religieusea 
n’  Staient  pas  moins  nombreuses  qu’  an  Pir6e.”  They  were  worshipers  of  num* 
erous  deities.  M.  Wescher  in  4he  Revue  Archiologtqne ,  1864,  tome  II.  p.  478,  saya 
he  collected  a  list  of  19  ineoripCons  representing  as  many  organizations  in  the 
island  of  Rhodes. 

47  Plato,  Republic ,  1. 1,  Socrates  says:  “Yesterday  I  went  down  to  the  Piraeus 
along  with  Glaukon,  Ariston’s  son,  to  worship  the  divinity  and  attend  the  festi¬ 
val.”  This  tutelary  patroness  was  Artemis,  sister  to  Apollo,  central  figure  of  the 
sun-worship  (see  chapter  on  Red  Banner ).  She  ranked  with  the  group  of  labor 
protectresses,  Cybele,  Ceres,  Minerva,  under  whom  so  many  organizations  were 
founded. 


514 


PALESTINE. 


characters,  aside  from  kings,  and  men  in  absolute  power, 
like  Lycurgus,  Numa  and  Solon.  These  five  men  repre¬ 
sent  the  labor  of  five  active  lives  devoted  to  the  improve¬ 
ment  of  human  conditions  on  a  large  scale.  They  are 
Socrates,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Spartacus  and  Jesus. 

Socrates  and  Jesus,  the  first  and  the  last,  seem  like  an 
incarnation  of  two  great  goodnesses  in  one.  The  analogy 
from  beginning  to  end  is  wonderful.  Both  were  sons  of 
humble  mechanics — one  a  marble-cutter,  the  other  a  car¬ 
penter.  Both  were  surrounded  by  communes  of  the  se¬ 
cret  eranoi ,  and  probably  both  were  members.  Both 
prenclied  quietly  to  their  disciples,  occasionally  addressing 
open-air  mass  meetings.  Both  were  betrayed  by  the  per¬ 
fidy  of  their  own  pretended  converts  and  suffered  death 
on  the  plea  of  corrupting  the  morals  which  the  ethics  of 
the  same  Pagan  faith  had  fostered  and  grown,  out  of  the 
hideous  philosophy  of  human  slavery.  The  result  to  the 
human  race,  of  these  parallel  lives  and  martyrdoms  has 
been  altogether  incalculable. 

Plato,  the  admirer  of  Socrates,  dared  not  follow  his 
master. 

Aristotle,  borrowing  from  Anaxagoras  and  Kapila,  laid 
the  foundation  of  human  improvement,  with  great  pre¬ 
cision,  upon  the  scientific  ground-work  of  mechanics.  His 
ideas,  restored  by  Bacon,  are  those  which  the  world  is 
now  following. 

Spartacus,  the  greatest  representative  of  the  purely  iras¬ 
cible,  the  most  sublime  character  and  type  of  the  lower 
philosophy  of  resistance,  who  careered  on  the  ground  of 
“  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,”  last,  and  just 
anterior  to  the  great  carpenter,  was  a  shepherd,  humble 
and  without  ambitions,  but  because  implicated  with  an 
age  of  injustice  wherein  u  opportunity  makes  the  man,” 
magnetized,  split  asunder,  almost  conquered  the  world, 
which  in  his  day  was  Rome. 

J esus,  who  before  coming  to  proper  age,  is  said  to  have 
studied  diligently,  seems  to  have  shaped  his  life-course 
from  the  results  of  lessons  gained  by  these  predecessors. 
He  accepted  the  acceptable  and  sternly  refused  that  which 
bore  no  promise  of  contributing  to  the  establishment  of 
a  heaven  on  earth.  He  gained  his  great  triumph  over 
slavery  by  adjusting  the  three  moral  impulses  of  Plato 


COMPARATIVE  WORK  OF  GREAT  MASTERS,  515 


and  the  dialecticians — irascibility,  concupiscence,  sympa¬ 
thy.  He  soothed  the  jarring  bitterness  of  the  first  by 
coaxing  concupiscence  from  its  ancient  realm  and  bring¬ 
ing  it  down  to  “want;”  and  married  them  together  by 
the  tie  of  sympathy,  the  impulse  most  matured  by  the  so¬ 
cial  unions ;  and  there  formed  the  stronghold  of  his  doc¬ 
trine  from  beginning  to  end. 

Plato,  the  ancient  mouth-piece  of  them  all,  as  he  is 
resurrected  in  Neo-Platonism,  after  a  test  of  7,000  gener¬ 
ations,  must  be  placed,  by  those  engaged  in  the  labor 
problem  of  to-day,  as  an  extraordinary  tissue  of  harmony 
and  absurdity.  He  wanted  the  better  (or  individual),  to 
overcome  the  multitude  (or  worse).*6 

The  experience  of  these  7,000  generations  since  Plato, 
forces  the  now  living  family  of  mankind  to  pronounce  an 
opposite  opinion.  It  is  the  masses  who  are  “  beautiful,” 
(as  Plato  used  that  word);  while  the  individual  proves 
himself  constantly  to  be  the  lying,  bribe-taking,  merchant¬ 
able  “ sell-out ”  and  under-dealer;  ready  as  a  rule,  under  the 
competitive  system,  for  any  trade,  seditiously  corrupt, 
planning  schemes  of  jobbery;  and  he  has  actually  to  be 
watched  by  the  honest  masses. 

Plato  wanted  slaves.  His  slave  system,  large  already, 
during  his  life-time  was  small  compared  with  its  huge¬ 
ness  after  his  philosophy  was  promulgated  and  its  influ¬ 
ence  extended  to  the  Roman  conquests.  Before  his  time, 
slaves  were  the  children  of  the  citizens.  Soon  after  him, 
Rome  in  her  enormous  conquests,  turned  the  vast  popu¬ 
lations  of  that  age  into  rebellious  slaves,  and  the  world 
became  almost  depopulated.  This  master  not  only  wanted 
degraded  slaves,  but  he  laid  down  laws  for  them,  consign¬ 
ing  them  to  death  by  torture  for  unpremeditated  homicide 
■while  the  master  was  allowed,  if  he  murdered  a  slave,  to 
be  tried  by  his  friends,  acquitted  and  no  stigma  inflicted 
upon  his  name  ;  and  Plato  lays  down  a  law  to  that  effect.49 

The  entire  enlightenment  of  our  modern  age  repudiates 


<8  Laws,  I.  8,  4,  Bekker,  Lond.  ed. 

«  Laws,  IX.  9,  More  on  Plato’s  views  of  Slavery  will  be  found  as  follows : 
Breeding  mean  with  mean  and  best  with  best.  Republic .  V.  8,  Great  fear  of  slave 
uprising  in  consequence  of  the  system,  acknowledged,  IX.  5,  Id. ;  “Abject 
race;”  Statesmen,  46  •  Xecessary  to  possess  slaves  Laws,  VI.  19;  Agricultural 
slaves,  Laws,  VII.  13;  For  homicide  the  slave  must  invariably  die:  preferably  by 
torture,  Laws,  IX.  9;  Such  punishment  must  be  “clean,”  ie,  vengeance,  Laws . 
XI  2,  10,  fin. 


616 


PALESTINE. 


this  as  unfairness,  relegating  the  slave  system  to  a  realm 
of  low  barbarity.  On  human  slavery,  the  subsequent  world 
has  emphatically  pronounced  against  Plato’s  views  ;  and 
the  little  investigating  mites  of  Aristotle,  and  the  work¬ 
ing  elements  of  Jesus,  are  banishing  it  from  the  earth. 

Plato  wanted  war.60  He  laid  many  plans  and  laws  upon 
his  theory  of  external  strife,  wishing  only  education  and 
mutuality  within.  Neo-Platonism  took  it  up,  and  in  blas¬ 
phemous  contradiction  to  the  teacher,  endorsed  it,  and 
actually  engrafted  this  Pagan  precept  into  the  mild  and 
peaceful  system  of  Jesus. 

Things  have  not  turned  out  to  substantiate  these  coun¬ 
sels  of  the  great  philosopher.  Wars  the  people  had;  and 
the  wars  killed  a  million  slaves.  Eunus,  Athenion  and 
Spartacus  resented  by  warring  back ;  and  when  the  world, 
devastated  by  combined  horrors  of  war  and  slavery,  got 
time  to  breathe  and  recruit,  another  slave-war  struck  man¬ 
kind  even  in  our  civil  rebellion,  with  the  final  result  to  fix 
the  conviction  that  the  peace  plan  of  Jesus  was  correct. 

Plato  wanted  it  understood  and  implicitly  believed  that 
all  things  spring  from  the  most  high,  the  mythical  and 
invisible  inhabitants  of  Ouranos ;  and  that  men  derived 
existence,  and  were  watched  over  from  those  heights 
in  the  vaulted  dome  of  heaven,  the  Olympian  abodes — 
whence  an  endless  chain  of  priestcraft. 

Neo-Platonism  engrafted  these  absurdities  into  a  Chris¬ 
tian  dogma. 

Modern  common  sense,  backed  by  science,  with  its  in¬ 
numerable  tools  proving  the  true  laws  of  nature,  finds 
the  facts  to  be  the  exact  reverse  of  the  Platonic  dogma, 
and  is  wheeling  us  back  to  the  physicism  of  Aristotle,  that 
it  is  the  little  things  and  the  little  men  and  women  who 
perform  all  works,  who  produce  all  that  is  produced ; 
that  it  is  not  the  great,  conjured  to  be  so  in  the  elastio 
imagination,  who  accomplish  anything,  but  the  infinites- 
simals  that  do  it  alL 

60  Republic,  vii.  viil.  Polemarch  Is  made  to  say  that  Justice  consists  in  do¬ 
ing  good  to  friends  and  evil  to  enemies.  Socrates  however,  in  an  ironical  sally 
of  moral  reasoning  demolishes  Polemarch’s  logic,  wheeling  him  unto  the  great 
thesis  of  Jesus  which  now  proves  to  be  the  idea  that  alone  can  prevail:  See 
Matthevj ,  v.  43,44,  24;  John,  xv.  17.  First  Epistle  of  John,  ii.  10,  11.  The 
anti-war  teachings  of  Jesus  are  actively  forcing  these  horrors  from  the  earth 
just  as  chattel  slavery  has  been  forced  out  of  existence  and  wages  slavery  is  fast 
following. 


SYMPATHY ;  IRASCIBILITY ,  OONCUPISENCE.  517 


Jesus,  if  we  read  him  rightly,  appears  to  have  been  less 
a  Platonist  than  an  Aristotelian  and  when  he  comes  to  be 
preached  in  our  pulpits  from  labor  points  of  view,  there 
will  be  found  hundreds  of  texts  whose  meanings,  long 
smothered,  will  furnish  substance  enough  to  solve  the 
problem.61 

Emancipation  came  from  Christianity.63  The  great 
principle  of  mutual  love  among  all  men  was  the  really 
original  idea  and  practical  work  of  Jesus.  He  taught  a 
new  doctrine — a  peaceful  plan  of  salvation. 

Spartacus,  who  represented  the  old  method  of  allevia¬ 
tion  from  suffering,  based  upon  the  irascible  principle 
with  its  wars  and  bloodshed,  was,  beyond  all  cavil,  the 
highest  type  of  that  culture.  He  was  evidently  informed 
on  the  great  wars  of  V iriathus,  Eunus,  Athenion  and  per¬ 
haps  Drimakos.  But  in  both  opportunity  and  military 
aptitude  Spartacus  surpassed  them  all.  He  lost.  But 
after  the  million  crucifixions  of  his  own  and  a  few  gener¬ 
ations  preceding  him,  and  the  enormous  lessons  which  his 
own  and  his  predecessors’  blows  had  administered  to 
cruel,  concupiscent  Itome,  who  shall  have  the  temerity  to 
say  that  these  blows,  crucifixions,  bloody  scenes  and  awful 
lessons  did  not  go  far,  very  far,  toward  shaping  the  convic¬ 
tions  of  Jesus,  who  but  continued  the  great  conflict  with 
his  milder  leadership  % 

Modern  progress,  which  has  almost  outgrown  chattel 
slavery,  still  seems  quite  undecided  in  regard  to  the  plan 
of  Spartacus ;  and  might  even  yet  swing  back  upon  it,  were 
it  not  for  the  stern,  inexorable  hold  which  Jesus  main¬ 
tains  in  the  wTreck  of  his  tortured,  priest-ridden  temples 
— and  this  hold  is  the  hope  of  the  future ;  for  his  plan  ap¬ 
plies  with  wonderful  harmony  to  the  investigations  and 
experiments  of  Aristotle. 

Plato  wanted  the  unequivocal  mingling  of  religion  and 
politics.68 

There  are  many  expressions  recorded  in  the  New  Testament  which  are  vague 
In  meaning  and  must  remain  so  until  better  understood.  After  this  they  u  ay 
be  used  by  ministers  of  the  gospei,  in  the  labor  movement. 

6-  Compare  Canon  Lightfoot,  On  the  Collossians,  p.  3zl ;  Bockh,  Die  Laurischen 
Silberbergwerke  Hundreds  of  the  most  candid  authors  acknowledge  that  it  was 
the  Christian  cult  which  finally  fought  down  this  terrible  institution.  In  going, 
paganism  had  also  to  go.  But  as  we  study  the  origin  and  course  of  events  v/o 
ninst  acknowledge  that  the  blow  against  slavery  had  been  struck  before  the  ad¬ 
vent  of  Christ.  lie  it  was,  who  killed  slavery  by  tempering  the  spirit  of  human 
kinuness. 


513 


PALESTINE. 


Modern  statesmen,  notwithstanding  the  almost  desper¬ 
ate  struggles  of  priest-power  to  hold  firm  this  Pagan  grip, 
are  now  steadily  disestablishing  state  and  church;  and 
the  verdict  of  enlightenment  both  in  the  realm  of  science 
and  sociology,  is  to  cast  overboard,  as  worthless  and  per¬ 
nicious,  this  old  idea  of  Plato  and  let  religion  and  politics 
each  take  their  course  alone.  Jesus  not  only  separated 
church  from  state  by  admonishing  the  typical  money¬ 
changers,  but  he  said:  “Render  unto  Caesar”  etc.  The 
Caesar  here  referred  to,  was  the  mild  Augustus,  whose 
reign  was,  in  political  respects,  a  model,  and  a  glory  to 
Rome. 

Plato  wanted  an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth.M 
He  encouraged  hatreds  even  in  his  “  city  of  the  Blessed,” 
and  trained  an  army  of  both  women  and  men  to  the  science 
of  fierce  contention. 

“  Resist  not  evil,”  the  law  of  the  mechanic  of  Nazareth, 
has  so  far  supplanted  these  savage  docirines,  that  already 
the  trade  unions  and  other  social  and  labor  organizations 
in  many  countries,  are  discussing  and  planning  to  resist 
against  men  of  Plato’s  class,  on  grounds  that  they  them¬ 
selves  are  forced  to  become  innocent  victims  of  a  hateful 
idea  which  pits  them,  like  Spartaeus  and  the  gladiators, 
against  their  fellow  men,  who  have  given  them  no  cause 
for  often se. 

Yet  all  things  considered,  the  world  cannot  afford  to 
belittle  Plato,  the  father  of  idealism ;  even  though  many 
oi  his  time-serving  thoughts  are  passing  away.  His  mind 
was  too  great  for  his  age  and  his  weaknesses  were  but 
subterfuges  which  saved  him  to  a  good  old  age  while 
bolder  men  were  martyred  in  comparative  youth. 

But  Aristotle  who  began  with  microscopic  things,  whose 
mind,  a  consension  of  Kapila,  of  Anaxagoras,  of  Empedo- 
eic3,  of  Parmenides,  of  Zeno,  of  Plato  himself,  is,  as  the 
world  grows  old  and  wise,  and  as  light  gleams  in  upon 
intelligence,  beaming  more  brilliantly  with  each  decade; 
and  this  great  man’s  thoughts  are  laying  bare  the  in- 
crusted  truth  and  leading  to  the  final,  perfected  philoso¬ 
phy.  Aristotle’s  is  the  mind  which  draws  ever  nearer  as 

bi  Laws,  book  VI.  cap.  7,  Bekk.  It  was  always  so  in  the  ancient  code.  Neo- 
Platonism  and  the  Nicinc  Decrees  afterward  succeeded  in  getting  this  old  Pagan 
thing  back  into  ike  Christian  cnurch  where  it  still  remains,  in  some  countries. 

i>*  Plato,  Jusliss,  5  ;  Republic ,  passim  ;  Laws,  in  many  places. 


THE  GREAT  ARISTOTLE 


519 


the  ages  waft  him  farther  away  among  the  satellites  of  an 
awful  forever. 

Jesus,  who  planted  among  the  communes  and  laborers 
all  that  was  good  and  pure,  but  whose  beautiful  works 
have  been  almost  banished  by  the  proud  old  paganism 
still  adhering  in  his  temples,  departed  only  to  return ;  for 
these  growing  squadrons  of  the  modern  mites  foretell  that 
he  is  deeting  back  to  assume  command  of  a  great  army 
of  unreconciled  but  longing  intelligences,  which  the  an¬ 
cient  working  people  quickened,  and  which  the  suns  of  two 
thousand  years  have  mellowed  for  the  harvest. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 


THE  FINAL  REVIEW. 

ANCIENT  PLANS  OP  “BLESSED”  GOVERNMENT. 

Why  the  Facts  were  Suppressed  and  the  Books  Mangled — Did 
our  Era  rise  out  of  the  Great  Labor  Struggles — An  Aston¬ 
ishing  Probability  Unmasked — Plants  and  Plans  of  the  Dis¬ 
tant  Past — Lycurgus — Reverential  Criticism — His  Funda¬ 
mental  Error — The  Citizens  were  the  Nobles — Public  Lands, 
Meals,  Schools  and  Games — The  Grotto  of  Taygetus — “Hell 
Paved  with  Infants’  Bones” — A  Model  Young  Gentleman — 
His  Introduction  to  the  Ladies — An  Earthquake  believed  to 
have  been  the  Spartans  *  Punishment  for  Cruelty  to  the 
Working  People — The  Poor  and  Lowly  were  called  “Slave 
Souls’* — The  Great  Aristotle’s  Curse — Lucian’s  Choice  of  a 
Trade — Even  Plutarch  Lampoons  Them — Kings  Planting 
Poisons  with  which  to  Destroy  Them — Prophets  and  Mes¬ 
siahs — Eunus  the  Prophet  of  Antioch — His  Plan  of  Salvation 
— No  Quarters — Wholesale  Extinction  of  the  Wealthy — What 
Succeeding  Ages  Learned  from  the  Outcome  of  this  Ordeal 
of  Carnage — Plans  of  the  Anarchists  Taught  Needful  Lessons 
on  Future  Political  Economy — Drimakos — His  Home  of  Run¬ 
away  Angels  in  the  Skies — How  his  Plan  Worked — Desper¬ 
ate  Plan  of  Aristonicus  in  Asia  Minor  which  offers  the  Toilers 
the  Beatitude  of  being  il  Citizens  of  the  Sun  ’* — Sad  Outcome 
— Innocent  Plan  of  Spartacus — His  Ideal  *  *  Salvation”  was 
his  Emancipation  Proclamation  and  Armed  Power  to  Enforce 
It — He  Wanted  to  Go  Home  to  the  Green  Hills  of  His  Boy¬ 
hood — All  these  Plan-Makers  were  Messiahs  and  Prophets — 
“The  Kings  Kill  the  Prophets  ” — The  Great  Messiah  at  Last 
— Long-Smothered  Authors  Dragged  forth — Their  own  Ut¬ 
terances  Quoted  in  the  Living  Tongue— Numerous  Excerpts 
from  their  Books — Men  Growing  Wise  in  Their  Understand¬ 
ing — The  Vastness  of  the  Revolution  from  the  Pagan  Cult 
which  Denied  the  Majority  Both  Soul  and  Liberty,  threw  the 
Race  into  Bewilderment  of  Two  Thousand  Years  of  Trial 


WHY  THE  FA  CIS  WERE  SUPPRESSED.  521 


and  Donbt — Plans  of  the  Founders  of  Government  Reviewed 
— Resemblance  of  Socrates  and  Jesus — Paralellisms  Drawn 
— One  Agitates  by  Simile  the  other,  Allegory — Proof  that 
they  were  Both  Great  Orators — Their  Eloquence — Teaching 
Precepts  that  are  just  Becoming  Applicable — The  Intellect¬ 
ual  Stagnation  in  after  Ages  a  Natural  Consequence  upon  a 
Revolution  that  Overturned  the  Great  Pagan  Cult — The  Mo¬ 
hammedan  Rescue — London’s  Socialism  from  Same  Old  Plant 
— What  two  Men  Did  in  Twenty-five  Centuries — Pagan  Self¬ 
ishness  Exhibited  in  Prayers — Very  Ancient  Prayers  of  Our 
Germano- Aryan  Mothers  and  Fathers — Specimens  Quoted — 
Prayer  of  Alcestis — Of  Other  honest  Pagans— All  Based  upon 
Self  and  Family-j-Prayer  of  Socrates  to  Pan  for  More  Wisdom 
and  Humility — Prayer  of  Juvenal  for  the  Poor  Slave’s  De¬ 
liverance — Finally,  after  many  Centuries,  the  Dying  Prayer 
Begged  the  Pan  of  Socrates  or  Universal  Father  for  Universal 
Cancellation,  to  fit  the  World  for  a  New  Era — The  Relation 
of  the  Jews  to  the  Labor  Movement — The  Romans,  Mad  at 
the  Spread  of  the  Christian  Doctrines  of  Universal  Equality, 
Take  Vengeance  in  the  Slaughter  of  the  Jews — Progress  of 
Ancient  Invention — The  Labor-saving  Reaper — Conclusion. 

In  looking  thoughtfully  over  the  evidences  given  in 
the  preceding  chapters,  especially  those  detailing  ancient 
plans  of  relief,  through  the  irascible  or  war  spirit  which, 
though  it  wrought  prodigious  good,  did  not  prevail,  and 
those  of  the  communal  or  co-sympathetic  spirit  which  is 
the  successful  one,  we  cannot  forbear  an  expression  of  our 
conviction  that  the  phenomenal  movement  of  which  Judea 
afterwards  became  the  theatre,  rested  upon  and  emerged 
from,  the  vast  and  altogether  misunderstood  and  under¬ 
rated  communes;  an  underground  civilization  whose  cul¬ 
ture  Socrates  was  not  a  stranger  to,  and  whose  influence, 
social,  numerical  and  moral,  has,  until  exposed  in  these 
pages,  lain  almost  utterly  unknown,  buried  as  they  were, 
amid  the  horrors  which  befel  Christianity  through  the 
political  trade  of  Constantine  the  Great.  This  man  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  turning  the  movement  when  it  was  three  hun¬ 
dred  years  old  into  a  Pagan  faith  hedged  about  with  iron- 
bound  creeds  and  enforced  by  the  inexorable  despotism 
which  characterized  the  military  and  the  priest-power  of 
the  ancient  Pagan  rule. 

It  will  be  asked  why  these  important  facts  we  have  set 
forth  have  been  so  persistently  kept  concealed.  The  an¬ 
swer  to  this  must  be,  that  information  was  not  the  policy 


522 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


of  priest-power.  To  acknowledge  that  the  poor  and  hu¬ 
miliated  laborers  of  the  world  had,  through  centuries  of 
organization  in  secret,  and  centuries  of  resistance  and 
persecution,  at  last  overcome  the  proud  old  religion  so 
far  as  to  boldly  martial  a  champion  and  bring  their  unique 
culture  of  human  equality  into  recognition,  so  as  to  build 
up  a  new  era,  would  destroy  the  aged  prestige  of  the  priest¬ 
hood.  This  is  the  only  theory  furnishing  a  solution  for 
the  studied  deception  that  has  mutilated  the  books.  Plato 
wanted  distinction  as  to  members  of  his  communal  state. 
He  wanted  prie  st-power  aiid  its  concomitant,  slavery.  As 
the  new  era  came  with  its  practical  putting  into  effect  of 
the  socialism  of  Plato,  but  applying  it  to  everybody  with - 
out  distinction,  thus  emancipating  Plato’s  slaves,1  .if ting  up 
the  freedmen  and  doing  good  to  all ,  paganism  was  stabbed. 
Its  aged  priest-power  then  arose  and,  in  revenge,  killed 
Jesus,  the  last  Messiah  who  in  the  philosophy  and  tra¬ 
dition  of  the  poor  and  suffering,  had  been  their  hope  and 
promise  from  immemorial  antiquity.  Having  kmed  him 
it  set  to  work  to  destroy  his  plan  which  he  planted  among 
the  communes,  “  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord.”  The  weap¬ 
ons  used  were  assassination,  dungeons,  worse  slavery 
than  before — Neo-Platonism.  But  the  great  work  of  eman¬ 
cipation  had  made  too  much  progress  to  be  cut  sh  ort  by 
any  power  on  earth. 

We  ask  our  readers  to  indulge  us  in  this  closing  chap¬ 
ter,  in  a  general  review  of  the  whole  scene,  covering  the 
the  various  plans  of  great  men,  their  trial  and  their  con¬ 
sequences  upon  the  subsequent  human  race. 


1  See  Dr.  Lightfoot,  Saint  Pauls  Epistle  to  Philemon ,  pp.  821-2;  “With  this 
wide-spread  institution”  (  meaning  slavery,)  “  Christianity  found  itself  in  con¬ 
flict.  How  was  the  evil  to  be  met?  Slavery  was  interwoven  into  the  texture 
of  society ;  and  to  prohibit  slavery  was  to  tear  society  into  shreds.  Nothing 
less  than  a  servile  war  with  its  certain  horroi's  and  doubtful  issues  must  have 
been  the  consequence.  Such  a  mode  of  operations  was  altogether  alien  to  the 
spirit  ol  the  Gospel.  ‘  The  New  Testament,’  it  has  been  truly  said,  ‘  is  not  con¬ 
cerned  with  any  political  or  social  institutions ;  for  political  and  social  institu¬ 
tions  belong  to  particular  nations  and  particular  phases  of  society.’  ‘Nothing 
marks  the  divine  character  of  the  Gospel  more  than  its  periect  freedom  from 
any  appeal  to  the  spirit  of  political  revolution.’  It  belci'gs  to  all  time;  and 
therefore  instead  of  attacking  special  abuses  it  lays  down  universal  principles 
which  shall  undermine  the  evil. 

“  Hence  the  Gospel  never  directly  attacks  slavery  as  an  institution .  In 

fact,  he  (Paul)  tells  him  to  do  very  much  more  than  emancipate  his  slave  Sim¬ 
ilar  also  is  his  language  elsewhere.  Wx'iting  to  the  Corinthiatir,  he  declares  the 
absolute  equality  of  (he  freeman  and  the  alave  in  the  sight  of  God.  Firs 
Corinthians,  vii.  21. 


DID  0  UR  ERA  RISE  0  UT  OF  LABOR  STR  UQ  GLES  ?  523 


Under  a  careful  and  thorough  investigation  of  the  evi¬ 
dence  it  will  henceforth  be  found  in  order  for  students 
of  sociology  to  place  the  origin  of  this  wonderful  era  in 
which  we  are  living,  where  it  properly  belongs.  It  is  in 
order  to  come  forth  boldly  with  a  new  advocacy;  an  ad- 
vocacy  of  the  fact  that  the  Christianity  on  which  the  pres¬ 
ent  institutions  rest  and  which,  as  we  divest  it  of  its  me- 
diieval  excrescences  century  by  century,  is  leading  to  the 
final  and  correct  solution  of  the  economic  problem,  is  pri- 
mevally  that  which  emerged  from  the  great,  but  little- 
known  because  throttled  and  unheard-of  labor  movements 
of  the  ancients — their  numberless  Messiahs,  their  perse¬ 
cutions  and  crucifixions,  their  plaintive  “still  small  voice” 
groaning  above  the  grime  and  din  of  lash-driven  labor 
in  sun  and  storm,  in  mines,  dungeons,  gladiatorial  havoc, 
their  sad  but  bravely-fought  “eye-for-eye  and  tooth-for- 
tooth”  policy,  and  finally  their  majestic,  long-suffering, 
but  all-conquering  “fattier  forgive  them”  policy  wrought 
in  the  crucible  of  a  thousand  traditions,  communes,  blood¬ 
wringing  rebellions,  derascinating  cyclones  of  retributive 
vengeance  already  explained,  which  had  been  previously 
experienced  by  the  forefathers  of  this  great  era-making 
representative  of  the  ancient  lowly. 

To  those  who  are  appalled  by  these  sentiments,  prefer¬ 
ring  to  coax  with  a  superstitious  faith  still  lingering  on 
the  background  of  a  struggling,  on-coming  fact-period, 
and  still,  like  Arnobius,  troubled  with  doubts  and  predi¬ 
lections  regarding  the  sacredness  of  the  conception  and 
birth  of  this  great  founder,  we  must  simply  say  that  the 
labor  movement,  especially  that  phase  of  it  dealing  with 
the  economic  questions  of  the  humble  majorities,  is,  and 
must  come  to  be  regarded ,  as  the  most  sacred  of  all  questions; 
and  iis  solution  or  non- solution  involves  a  release  of  man¬ 
kind  from  sin,  or  their  compulsory  and  perpetual  sub¬ 
mergence  under  sin.  The  enormous  sin  of  our  era  is  its 
apostasy  from  the  early  economic  plan  laid  down  at  its 
beginning  and  for  three  hundred  and  fourteen  years  ear¬ 
ned  out  under  persecutions,  on  the  economic  basis ;  and 
its  wdbstitution  under  emperors  and  prelate-politicians, 
by  the  very  most  unscientific  plan  conceivable — that  of 
the  ancient  faith,  which  deceived  and  dfegr&fod  the  chat- 
to*  cjud  wretch  of  old,  end  still  deceives  and  degrades,  the 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


victims  of  wage-vassalage  the  world  over.  This  sin  ruled* 
raged  and  devastated  for  over  a  thousand  years  through 
ignorance  and  dogma  and  cheat  and  inquisition,  such  as 
characterize  the  dreary  annals  of  the  dark  ages  and  now 
looms  up  portentously  in  view;  for  we  behold  million!  of 
men  again  organized,  more  determined,  wiser  by  their 
experience,  better  equipped  for  the  fray.  And  this  huge 
sin,  of  apostasy  we  hope,  will  be  discerned  by  the  student 
of  these  pages  to  be  freighted  with  a  virus  the  more  ma¬ 
lignant  as  he  observes  that  preacher  and  priest  are  still 
tenaciously  hugging  the  slave-locked  policy  of  Plato  the 
immortal  aristocrat,  while  backsliding  farther  and  farther 
away  from  the  sweet  and  loving  brotherhood  of  the  thi - 
asotes  and  the  eranoi  of  Socrates  and  of  Jesus.  They 
still  cling  to  an  old  policy  which  was  the  meanest  upon  the 
Pagan  schedule — that  of  the  competitive  system,  with 
its  economic  slaves.  Although  in  another  form  and  bias- 
phemously  under  another  name  it  was  a  return  to  pagan¬ 
ism,  yet  we  shall  attempt  to  show  in  this  review  that  the 
apostasy  from  the  original  policy  could  never  succeed  in 
eliminating  the  bold  ground- principles  of  equality  which 
was  ever  the  prodigious,  the  immovable,  blood-bought 
rock-reef,  on  which  those  drifting  stragglers  founded  and 
built  this  era.  Despite  the  protracted  spasms  of  the  mor¬ 
ibund  beast2  to  wriggle  back  into  its  breathing  element, 
these  ground  principles  clung;  they  still  cling;  are  now 
steadily  developing  a  polity  and  men  are,  in  some  places, 
beginning  to  reap  their  fruits. 

It  must  by  no  means  be  inferred,  because  the  rebellions 
of  the  ancient  working  people  failed  in  establishing  the 
desired  end  that  they  were  not  a  useful  factor  or  that  their 
efforts  were  lost.  They  failed  because  their  military  force 
was  less  than  that  of  their  enemies.  They  succeeded  be¬ 
cause  through  their  defeat,  furnishing  necessary  and  in¬ 
dispensable  experience,  the  world  was  taught  that  it  must 
adopt  another  method — that  of  reason,  diplomacy,  arbi¬ 
tration,  peace.  Never  was  there  a  time  when  the  world 
was  drifting  into  these  so  rapidly  as  now.  Two  thousand 
Nears  may  seem  a  long  time  to  impatient,  fleeting  man; 
but  in  the  destinies  of  peoples  and  of  nations,  their  slow 

•  *  iiewlotions  X  Vll.,  4,  S(jq. 


REVERENTIAL  CRITICISM. 


52.f> 


development  through  creeping  differentiation  by  trial 
and  experiment, it  is  but  a  scroll. 

The  review,  then,  which  we  propose  to  make  in  this  chap¬ 
ter,  is  that  of  man  in  the  broadest  sense;  covering  the  entire 
stretch,  from  a  time  when  he  was  but  an  animal — the  weaker 
driven  by  the  stronger — through  the  long  period  of  family  - 
breeding  when  the  father,  destitute  of  sympathy,  enslaved, 
often  killed  his  children  in  building  up  the  established  gens 
aristocracy  of  paganism;  the  rebellion  of  the  children  who 
multiplied,  struck  back,  and  built  up  counter  organizations 
in  self-defense,  fought  and  resisted  the  paternal  injustice 
based  in  the  monarchical  idea,  and  in  their  turn,  after  count¬ 
less  ages  of  trial  by  systems  rebellious,  systems  patriarchal, 
systems  predatory  and  systems  communal,  finally  hit  the 
system  of  inter-communal  love,  forgiveness,  brotherhood, 
peace  and  ballot-democracy,  which,  though  it  has  had  an 
open  trial  of  only  2,000  years — a  short  period  compared 
with  the  duration  of  the  others — has  already  brought  him 
out  upon  the  plane  of  acknosvledged  equality,  in  the  sup¬ 
planting  of  violence  by  arbitration,  of  aristocracy  dy  dem¬ 
ocracy,  of  competition  to  some  extent,  by  socialism.  We  shall 
show  that  all  of  these  blessings  were  sought  by  the  great 
and  good  men:  Lycurgus,  Numa,  Solon,  Socrates,  Plato, 
Aristotle — even  the  contemned  Eunus,  Athenion,  Sparta- 
cus — and  finally  Jesus,  who  is  yet  on  trial.  If  we  severely 
criticize  Lycurgus,  let  it  be  done  under  an  almost  reveren¬ 
tial  respect;  for  he  could  not  conceive  of  a  state  without 
slaves;  if  Plato,  be  it  uppermost  in  our  minds  that  he  was 
unimpeachably  pure ;  if  we  dare  to  reflect  against  Aristotle, 
let  it  be  with  homage,  as  if  approaching  the  sepulchre  of  the 
mighty  ;  for  this  great  founder  of  technical  science  is  the 
model  from  which  the  world  still  builds,  and  he  even  dared 
foretell  a  society  in  which  there  might  be  no  slavery.  Had 
these  lawgivers  been  perfect  their  works  would  have  been 
cut  off  by  the  same  martyrdom  that  was  suffered  by  the 
bolder  Socrates  and  Jesus. 

In  making  this  review  it  is  neither  possible  nur  necessary 
to  attempt  any  chronological  system  This  has  been  done 
Strictly  in  the  preceding  chapters.  We  promise  only  a  crit¬ 
ical  comparison  of  different  systems  and  hope  to  deal  fairly 
with  all,  gi  v:iig  the  o oirirs,  S&ynaga,  prayers,  struggles  and 
models  of  each  one,  as  hid  particular  plan;  and  we  likewise 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


626 

may  find  it  to  our  profit  to  compare  these  with  the  plans 
and  the  men  and  their  movements  and  demands  of  to-day, 
in  order  to  amplify  the  comparison  and  honestly  find  out 
which  of  the  ancient  methods  the  modern  age  is  follow¬ 
ing.  One  extremely  important  fact  must  be  held  upper¬ 
most  to  view:  the  leaders  who  form  the  subjects  of  these 
pages  had  each  a  very  clearly  defined  plan.  Even  Sparta- 
cus  was  not  without  hope  of  emancipating  the  slaves  of 
Italy  and  the  rest  of  the  world. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary,  after  our  elaborate  presentation 
of  the  history  of  the  lowly  and  their  ancient  works,  to  pre¬ 
mise  in  this  review,  that  the  whole  array  of  deeds  and  plans 
of  relief  shows  an  undeniable  harmony  with,  and  corrobora¬ 
tion  of  the  modern  theory  of  development  upon  the  largest 
scale,  and  from  a  cold  and  secular,  rather  than  an  imagin¬ 
ative  and  religious  or  superstitious  point  of  view. 

Our  history,  true  to  its  original  scheme,  covers  only  the 
great  Aryan  family  and  we  shall  let  the  Bible,  the  Zend  and 
other  Oriental  records  tell  of  its  cruelties  among  the  Sem¬ 
itic  and  other  branches,  referring  to  them  only  as  collateral 
evidence. 

Although  many  plans  of  law-making  were  tried  during  the 
great  era  covered  by  manumission,  yet  we  have  no  history 
until  we  come  to  Lycurgus,  and  must  consequently  devote 
our  first  remarks  to  him  and  his  wonderful  and  on  the  whole 
beneficent  work. 

Of  the  three  classes  of  citizens  in  the  sy&tem  of  Lycurgus 
the  first  was  the  governing,  the  second  the  police  or  mili¬ 
tary,  and  the  third  the  burgher  or  business  class8 — that  which 
Saint  Simon  denominates  the  bourgeosie.  The  mechanics 
and  farmers  were  considered  mean  and  unworthy.  To  the 
agricultural  laborers,  was  given  the  task  of  producing,  at 
what  is  now  considered  “starvation  wages,”  that  w7hich 
the  citizens  used  for  their  daily  nourishment  and  comfort ; 
yet  so  ungrateful  were  the  arrangements  deliberately  estab¬ 
lished  by  this  lawgiver,  that  to  be  a  good  farmer,  a  skilled 
mechanic,  an  inventor,  a  discoverer  of  the  new  in  nature, 
vras  to  be  a  most  degraded  and  abject  mortal,  denied  all  citi¬ 
zenship  and  hopelessly  doomed  by  “imperishable  laws.”* 

No  humane  person  of  our  age  can  peruse  these  accounts 
given  by  Zenophon,  Plutarch  and  others,  without  feelings 

•Plutarch,  Lycurffut,!,  17.  *  Idem,  passim. 


THE  MISTAKE  OF  LYCURGUS. 


52? 


of  sorrow  if  not  of  anger.  The  progress  and  purity  of  hu¬ 
man  society  may  safely  he  said  to  have  suffered  a  disaste? 
in  this  inhuman  feature  of  the  otherwise  generous  Lycurgait 
law.  It  was  self-defeating,  contradictory  and  inconsistent 
with  the  principle  intended  by  the  lawgiver  himself.  Ly- 
curgus  the  most  ancient  of  the  three  great  lawgivers  of  an¬ 
tiquity  belonging  to  the  Aryan  stock,  seeing  the  feuds  and 
other  inter-destructive  effects  of  the  competitive  system  at 
his  time  raging  with  great  fierceness  among  the  gens  fami¬ 
lies,  drew  up  a  system  of  laws  and  got  them  adopted  so  as 
to  go  into  practical  operation.  It  was  a  system  embracing 
the  revolution  from  the  competitive  to  the  socialistic  meth¬ 
ods.  It  was  based  in  the  idea  so  quaintly  and  wonderfully 
developed  nearly  a  thousand  years  afterwards  hy  another 
inspired  lawgiver — the  workingman  of  Nazareth.  Its  very 
fundament  was  social  love,  forgiveness,  tolerance,  instruc¬ 
tion.  Lycurgus  was  attacked  by  the  optimate  party  who 
rebelled  against  his  equal  distribution  of  nationalized  lands, 
his  nationalization  of  other  property,  his  common  table,  his 
compulsory  education  of  all  alike,  his  athletic  trainings,  in 
fine,  his  extinction  of  property  and  of  the  competitive  sys¬ 
tem  so  far  as  all  internal  policy  of  his  people  was  concerned. 
One  young  man  once  pursued  him  and  with  a  missile  tore 
out  one  of  his  eyes.  He  turned  about  and  faced  his  irate 
pursuer  with  the  eye  that  had  offended  plucked  out,  and  his 
face  bleeding  with  the  wound.  The  argument  was  eloquent 
and  effective.  The  maddened  mob  of  rich  men  were  over¬ 
come  and  Lycurgus  was  allowed  to  go  on  with  his  work, 
unmolested. 6  His  system  of  socialism  was  more  detailed 
than  has  ever  since  been  aspired  to  by  any  class  except  an 
occasional  small  community;  for  he  added  thereto  a  com¬ 
munity  of  men  and  women  which  instead  of  being  a  com¬ 
plex  method  was  a  system  of  compulsory  marriage,  with  a 
law  permitting  the  finest  and  most  beautiful  to  borrow  and 
mutually  inter-employ  each  other  in  cases  of  likings  or  of 
compatibility. 6  This  was  the  Lycurgan  law  of  mutual  acqui¬ 
escence,  and  it  obtained  to  an  enormous  extent  for  over  a 
thousand  years  and  was  made  a  strong  and  scathing  point 
in  favor  of  Christianity  by  Tertullian  in  defending  the  early 
Christians  from  attacks  of  the  intolerant  Pagans.*  Tertul- 


*  Plutarch,  Lycurgus. 


6  Idem,  Lycurgus  and  Numa  compared. 


528 


PLANS  AND  MODELS, 


lian  in  this  celebrate*!  apology  gives  us  invaluable  proofs 
of  the  purity  of  the  Christians,  and  shows  that  they  had 
repudiated  it. 1 

But  these  strange  features  were  well  intended  by  the 
great  lawgiver.  It  was  not  to  promote  voluptuousness  but 
to  cultivate  a  principle — and  scientifically  enough — of  human 
stock-breeding.  At  any  rate,  it  was  a  feature  greatly 
recommended  among  the  ancients,  and  it  lay  at  the  base 
of  the  celebrated  race-culture  which  made  Spartans  the 
most  splendid  men  so  far  as  stature,,  health  and  beauty 
are  concerned,  the  world  ever  produced,  and  gave  to  the 
nation  that  mental  and  physical  vigor  which  enabled  it 
to  overcome  the  mighty  prowess  of  the  Athenians  and  to 
finally  transplant  a  branch  of  these  curious  features  into 
the  whole  Hellenic  peninsula,  Phoenicia,  Asia  Minor  and 
Sicily.  The  openly  established  object  of  this  branch  of 
the  law  Plutarch  declares  to  have  been  the  ownership  of 
children  by  the  state — not  by  the  parents 8 — which  is  a 
step  much  in  advance  of  anything  ever  advocated  by  any 
purely  labor  movement  of  modern  days.  But  these  en¬ 
joyments  and  privileges  were  only  to  be  participated  in 
by  the  citizens,  the  state  police  or  military  element  and 
the  burghers.  The  strictly  working  people  were  left  out. 

How  Lycurgus,  capable  of  coollv  devoting  a  life-time, 
mostly  in  privations  and  hardships  and  without  reward, 
to  what  he  considered  the  redemption  of  the  human  race, 
could  at  the  same  time  institute  for  those  on  whom  he 
knowingly  depended  for  his  bread  and  every  other  ele¬ 
ment  of  existence  as  well  as  that  of  the  people  for  whose 
happiness  he  lived,  and  consign  the  working  people  to 
the  terrible  fate  left  them  by  that  law,  is  a  problem  that 
must  startle  puzzle-guessers  amomg  students  of  modern 
sociology.  Only  one  method  can  possibly  be  pursued  to 
unravel  this  mystery  -  -the  utterly  demoralized  and  false 
estimate  of  the  value  of  labor. 

In  this  saddest  feature  of  the  law  of  Lycurgus  we  are 
brought  back  to  our  account  of  the  Helots  or  slaves,  in 
another  chapter, 9  where  figures  the  story  of  the  assas¬ 
sination  by  a  trained  band  of  young  Spartans,  of  2,000 
innocent  prize  winners  of  the  Helot  or  laboring  stock.  It 

i  Tertullian,  Apology,  XXXIX.  •  Plutarch,  Lycurgus, 

*  Chapter  lv.,  page  109  aq. ;  also  pp.  97 — 102,  of  this  work. 


HIS  CITIZENS  WERE  THE  NOBLES . 


629 


is  not  maintained  that  Lycurgus  was  the  originator  of 
the  slave  system.  We  find  it  spoken  of  in  the  hooks  of 
Homer  which  are  thought  to  cover  a  period  commencing 
at  least  300  years  earlier;  and  we  are  entirely  satisfied  of 
the  correctness  of  Granier’s  declaration  that  slavery  ex¬ 
isted  even  many  thousand  years  previously  to  Homer.10 
Lycurgus  only  perpetuated  the  miseries  of  the  working 
majority  by  fastening  the  odium  already  existing,  upon 
slaves  and  legalizing  their  burdens. 

No  citizen,  under  Lycurgus,  could  be  a  laboring  man 
so  far  as  to  personally  perform  the  work  of  production  or 
of  distribution.  By  his  “free  citizen”  he  did  not  mean 
any  person  who  was  obliged  to  work  for  a  living.  To  he 
a  soldier  was  respectable.  But  the  soldier  produces  noth¬ 
ing.  He  destroys.  So  also  does  the  governing  class.  These 
the  Spartan  lawgiver  made  very  numerous.  The  modern 
movement  of  labor  all  over  civilization  is  struggling  to 
diminish  their  numbers,  not  to  increase  them.  Lycurgus 
also,  among  his  favored  class,  allowed  many  of  the  trad¬ 
ing  or  business  men;  although  practically,  if  his  commun¬ 
istic  theory  obtained,  they  could  not  have  prospered  be¬ 
cause  the  state  operated  the  evolutions  of  business  with 
the  labor  of  its  slaves  which  was  conducted  or  managed 
by  the  governing  class.  Nobody  really  owned  anything 
in  his  theory,  if  perfected.  All  citizens  were,  however, 
rich  in  their  “collective”  wealth. 

Coming  to  Lycurgus  as  a  factor  in  the  history  of  labor, 
we  find  his  arrangement  regarding  working  people  to 
have  been  barbarous  and  horrible.  The  latter  constituted 
two-thirds  of  the  entire  population.  Yet  so  mean  were 
they  supposed  to  be  that  they  could  not  be  legally  counted 
in  the  census  as  men,  or  in  other  words,  human  beings. 
The  true  population  of  the  city  of  Sparta  consisted  of 
citizens.  They  were  divided  into  three  classes:  the  rul¬ 
ing  class,  the  military  or  protecting  class,  and  the  busi¬ 
ness  men.  The  nhole  three  covered  one-third  of  the  ex¬ 
isting  population.  All  *he  others  were  working  people, 
who,  as  slaves  or  artisan  freedmen,  were  obliged  to  live 
in  an  abject  condition,  feeding  on  the  poorest  food;11  go- 

1#  Granier  de  Cassagnac,  “Histoire  des  Classes  Ouvridres,”  Chap.  iii. 

11  For  food  of  slaves,  see  Homer,  “Odyssey,”  XIX.,  v.,  414-416;  Horace,  “Ars 
Poetica”  (“Ad  Pisonem”),  V.,  249;  Pliny,  “Natural  History,”  XVIII.,  XXIX, 
In  addition  to  these  consult  “Index”  of  this  volume. 


130 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


ing  almost,  often  quite,  naked;  living  in  caves,  the  mean¬ 
est  of  huts,  or  in  the  open  air,  sometimes  at  the  verge  of 
starvation;  if  slaves,  whipped  every  day  to  be  reminded 
of  their  cringing  humility;  horribly  brutalized  with  clubs 
whenever  they  dared  stretch  themselves  at  full  height, 
lest  they  be  taken  to  ape  the  human  stature  and  the  atti¬ 
tudes  of  manhood;1*  chained  to  the  side  of  mules  and 
oxen  to  draw  loads  like  beasts  of  burden;  waylaid  by  the 
trained  assassins  of  state,  equipped  with  daggers,  and 
murdered  for  mere  wanton  sport,  on  a  pretext  that  they 
were  dangerous;1*  forced  to  work  fourteen  to  eighth  n 
hours  preparing  food  and  clothing  for  the  citizen/  ;  o 
expressed  their  gratitude  by  kicks  and  terms  of  h 
and  contempt — such  was  the  practical  effect  of  th* 
brated  and  of  all  others,  most  renowned  law  of  Lycurg-.- 
Such,  through  numberless  ages  have  been  the  sufferings 
from  that  cruel  competition  that  is  based  upon  ownership 
by  a  privileged  few. 

The  legislation  of  Lycurgus  upon  which  Plato,  making 
Socrates  responsible,  principally  formed  his  ideal  state, 
may  be  summed  up  about  as  follows:  The  whole  king¬ 
dom  was  divided  into  39,000  lots  for  the  optimates,  who 
were  the  heaven-born  or  the  divine  class,  related  to  the 
gods* — nothing  for  the  earth-born  class  who  possessed 
neither  family  nor  soul.  A  branch  of  education  given  the 
young  gentlemen  was  the  teaching  them  how  to  murder 
the  earth-born  or  working  people,  with  daggers,  as  we 
have  already  related,  by  slyly  crawling  upon  them  while 
they  were  at  work.”  Another  branch  was  that  of  the 
gymnastic  games,  shared  by  both  sexes  and  according  to 
Plutarch,  in  a  dirty  and  utterly  nude  condition,  together; 
with  an  object,  as  that  great  biographer  declares,  of  toning 
and  moralizing  the  passions.  The  optimates  were  never 
allowed  to  work  except  in  the  aristocratic  pursuit  of  war. 
Commerce  with  other  nations  was  disallowed.  No  money 

1S  Plutarch,  “Lycurgus;”  Granier,  “Hist.,”  Chap.  v. 

11  Thucydides,  “De  Bello  Peloponnesiaco,”  IV.,  80;  V.,  84. 

14  For  the  ancient  idea  of  divine  rights,  see  “Roman  Law,”  4n  the  “En¬ 
cyclopaedia  Britannica,”  Vol.  XX.,  pp.  688-692.  It  was  the  same  in  Greece. 

15  Consult  Drumann,  “Arbeiter  und  Communisten  in  Griechenland  und 
Rom,”  S.  130-134.  Whatever  may  have  been  Plato's  own  notions,  his  partial¬ 
ity  to  the  plan  of  Lycurgus,  which  Dr.  Drumann,  author  of  the  great  history 
of  Rome,  admits,  It  is  certain  that  he  could  not  accept  that  lawgiver’s  plan 
as  perfect.  Ob  the  contrary  he  is  believed  by  this  author  and  many  otherf 
to  have  borrowed  considerably  from  the  Pythagorean  brotherhoods. 


PUBLIC  LANDS,  MEALS ,  SCHOOLS  AND  GAMES .  581 

was  permitted  except  that  made  of  iron — a  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars’  worth  of  it  being  a  cart-load.  The  people 
of  citizen  blood  ate  at  the  common  table,  waited  upon  by 
slaves.  What  became  of  it? 

Sparta,  in  B.  C.  about  600,  had  39,000  parcels  or  small 
holdings  for  all  in  the  kingdom.  In  B.  C.  360  there  were 
only  2,000.  In  B.  C.  290  the  outside  speculators  and  land 
grabbers  had  all  but  1,000.  At  the  time  of  Agis  IV.,  B.  C. 
240,  there  were  only  700  or  really,  but  100 — as  the  hold¬ 
ings  of  600  were  annihilated  by  debts — and  this  great 
scheme  of  political  economy  of  Lycurgus  was  gone.18 

The  historian,  to  flatter  the  vain  theory  of  divine  right 
is  loud  in  bringing  Lycurgus  to  us,  as  having  descended 
from  the  gods  to  mortals,  not  only  as  a  link  in  the  royal 
lineage  under  Eurysteneid  stock,  but  even  as  a  distant 
relative  of  Hercules.  Thus  the  Pagan  religion  is  sub¬ 
stantially  pandered  to  and  the  monocratic  idea  estab¬ 
lished.  A  prince  of  almost  unlimited  powers  by  family 
prestige,  he  in  youth  became  regent  by  inheritance,  of  the 
Spartans.  But  he  was  both  a  wise  and  good  prince;  and 
considering  the  age,  much  is  to  be  overlooked.  When  the 
true  heir  was  born  Lycurgus  named  him  Charilaus,  and 
although  he  had  an  offer  to  take  the  crown  himself  he 
refused,  preferring  to  be  an  adviser.  Thus  one  of  the 
first  acts  of  Lycurgus  was  to  establish  a  kingdom,  after 
having  himself  reigned  eight  months.  His  next  great 
edict  created  a  powerful  senate  or  council  of  the  old  and 
wise — a  body  seldom  elected  even  to  this  day;  and  a  re¬ 
cent  expression  to  abolish  them  has  gained  popularity 
among  labor  organizations.17 

These  senators,  twenty-eight  in  number,  some  repre¬ 
senting  the  Spartans  or  Dorians,  some  the  Laconians  or 
Perioeci,  formed  another  class  and  another  institution, 
soon  causing  concomitant  class  enmities  that  fanned  the 
final  ruin.  The  senatorial  government  proved  a  failure. 
Afterwards  they  had  to  create  the  Ephori.18  These  ty¬ 
rants  were  five  in  number  and  their  function  was  to  keep 

18  Drumann,  “Arbeiter  und  Communisten  in  Griechenland  und  Rom,”  6. 
130-184;  Bflcher,  “AnfstSnde  der  unfreien  Arbeiter,”  S.  8fl;  Plutarch,  “Ly¬ 
curgus. 

17  The  senate  is  thus  seen  to  be  an  aged  institution.  Being  seldom  of  the 
plebeian  stock  it  has  earned  a  bad  record,  as  against  itself;  and  is  conse¬ 
quently  still  regarded  by  that  element  with  distrust. 

18  Xenophon,  “De  Republics  Lacedamonia,”  say®  Lycurgus  himself  created 
the  ephon. 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


peace  between  the  two  kings  and  twenty-eight  senators. 
Thus  Lycurgus  fastened  upon  the  Peloponnesus  the  two 
kings,  twenty-eight  senators,  five  peace-makers,  but  gave 
them  no  house  of  commons — three  institutions. 

His  fourth  celebrated  measure  was  the  apportionment 
of  the  39,000  lots.  ‘The  size  of  each  lot  was  sufficiently 
large  to  yield  eighty-two  bushels  of  wheat  as  a  yearly  av¬ 
erage,  besides  other  produce  sufficient  for  the  families. 

A  fifth  measure  struck  at  common  ownership  of  all  mov¬ 
able  goods  and  chattels.  To  do  this  it  was  found  neces¬ 
sary  to  institute  the  famous  iron  money.  It  was  wrought 
in  the  blacksmith’s  forge  and  stamped  in  the  government 
dies.  The  result  was,  nobody  would  steal  such  a  huge 
and  ponderous  thing.  Foreign  countries  could  not  trade 
and  commerce  stopped.  An  ox  cart-load  of  the  Spartan 
money  was  equal  only  to  a  few  dollars.  The  gewgaws  of 
fashion  were  self-banished,  luxury  ceased  and  primitive 
simplicity  revived.  These  innovations  could  obtain,  so 
long  as  the  overawing  magnetism  and  command  of  Lycur¬ 
gus  was  there  to  persuade  by  bland  patriarchal  smiles  or 
austere  commands,  prevailing  through  suavity,  intimida¬ 
tion  and  reverence.  But  before  the  majestic  tread  of  hu¬ 
man  enlightenment  already  in  Athens  and  knocking  at 
the  very  portals  of  these  haughty  Spartans  themselves, 
such  simplicity  was,  in  the  terms  of  the  shrewd  Aristotle, 
simply  “childish.”  It  was  ridiculous  from  within  and  with¬ 
out.  It  flourished  for  a  time  and  perished,  leaving  a  stigma 
which  time  has  failed  to  efface  and  a  denunciation  so  pro¬ 
found  as  to  have  forever  prevented  its  resuscitation. 

The  sixth  institution  of  Lycurgus  was  his  public  tables. 
It  presents  a  sweet  and  touching  reminiscence  to  us,  still 
struggling  in  the  awful  vortex  of  competing  interests.  It 
seems  indeed  beautiful  to  look  back  and  see  our  ancient 
fathers  and  mothers  of  whom  we  may  feel  justly  proud, 
sitting  on  their  rough  stools  around  a  great  oaken  or  deal 
table  loaded  with  good  things  from  a  common  oven,  every 
slice  of  the  hot,  steaming  cutlets  of  veal  or  mutton  and 
every  savory  morsel,  recognized  as  the  public  property. 
The  citizens  were  public  property;  the  houses,  tables  and 
stools,  tho  public  property. 

But  who  are  those  nude,  suffering,  half-starved,  crouch- 


HELL  PA  VED  WITH  INFANTS'  BONES . 


63S 


ing  forms  noiselessly  gliding  to  and  fro,  bringing  these 
delicious  fruits  of  labor  to  the  happy  partakers?  They 
are  the  waiters,  the  cooks,  the  working  people  and  their 
little  ones — all  under  the  curse  of  the  Spartan  law.  This 
is  what  the  magnanimous  communistic  rule  of  Lycurgus 
never  provided  for  except  to  damn  Plutarch  informs 
us  that  at  the  public  tables  these  people  were  all  obliged 
by  law  to  eat  together,  and  in  common.  Although  they 
had  homes  the  law  forbade  them  taking  their  meals  there 
lest  with  the  labor  of  the  skilled  butchers  and  cooks,  they 
should  fatten  like  voracious  animals  and  become  corrupt, 
sensual  and  dissolute.1* 

This  arrangement  resembled  the  co-operative  kitchens 
of  our  own  times,  only  established  upon  a  vast  scale  by 
government  and  universally  enforced  by  the  law  and  po¬ 
lice  of  the  land.  Its  principal  object  was  to  level  the  hith¬ 
erto  existing  conditions  of  wealth  and  poverty  in  which 
Lycurgus  had  found  his  people;  and  according  to  the  best 
account,  the  plan  worked  well,  with  the  one  exception 
that  the  healthful  exercise  of  the  citizens  in  labor  was  en¬ 
tirely  left  out,  all  work  of  every  kind  belonging  to  the 
economic  class  being  performed  by  freedmen  and  slaves. 
Thus  labor,  so  sacred  to  the  prosperity  of  modern  lands, 
was  disgraceful  in  this  “region  of  the  blessed.” 

When  a  newly  born  babe  on  examination  was  found  to 
be  strong  and  without  corporeal  blemish,  an  order  was 
published  to  have  it  educated  by  and  at  the  cost  of  the 
state.  It  then  received,  if  of  the  Dorian  stock,  one  of  the 
9,000,  or  if  of  the  Laconian,  one  of  the  30,000  parcels  of 
land.  But  should  it  prove  weakly,  malformed,  marked  or 
unseemly,  the  horrid  death  warrant  was  signed  and  the 
poor  little  innocent  was  pitched  down  a  cavernous  pit 
called  “Apothetae,”  from  a  crag  of  the  Mount  Taygetus; 
and  dashed  to  a  jelly  upon  the  rocks.  So  stern  were 
mothers  in  their  obedience  to  this  law  that  they  washed 
their  little  ones  with  wine  instead  of  water;  because  this 
strong  ablution  best  tested  their  innate  powers.  If  the 
babe  proved  too  weak  to  outgrow  this  treatment,  it  was 
ruthlessly  thrown  into  the  rock-lined  maw  of  this  Tay- 
getan  grotto.  Surely,  under  the  dispensation  of  Lycur^ 
gus  “hell  was  paved  with  infants1  bones.” 

**  Plutarch,  “Lycurgus.” 


534 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


A  child  when  saved  was  educated.  At  seven  years  of 
age  it  was  martialed  into  a  species  of  military  company 
and  brought  up  under  the  rigors  of  obedience  as  under 
military  discipline.  The  hair  was  cropped  short,  the  body 
kept  dirty,  and  all  play  was  in  a  state  of  perfect  naked¬ 
ness.  The  children  slept  on  beds  made  of  reed  tops  which, 
without  knives,  they  were  obliged  to  gather  for  them¬ 
selves.  They  were  required  to  go  barefoot  at  all  seasons 
of  the  year.  At  the  age  of  fifteen  to  twenty  they  had 
military  manoeuvres  or  sham  battles.  They  were  also  re¬ 
quired  to  perform  such  military  duty  as  making  soldiers* 
campaign  outfits.  The  material  for  this  they  were  re¬ 
quired  to  steal.  They  were  taught  to  crawl  into  the  gar¬ 
dens  and  steal  the  melons  and  other  fruits;  if  caught  they 
were  mercilessly  flogged  for  the  fault  of  being  found  out. 
The  act  itself  was  not  a  crime — logically  too — for  all 
things  being  common  and  there  being  no  ownership,  it 
followed  that  there  was  absolutely  no  incentive  to  steal, 
any  more  than  a  man  has  to  steal  his  own  property.  Let 
the  critic  he  cautious  about  reflecting  against  Lycurgus 
for  this,  as  one  is  apt  to  do  through  the  medium  of  a  com¬ 
petitive  or  ownership  system  such  as  this  in  which  he  ex¬ 
ists  and  from  which  stand-point  he  judges.  The  old  law¬ 
giver  certainly  had  the  best  of  us  on  this  score.  But  one 
is  still  at  a  loss  to  analyze  his  motives  for  teaching  young¬ 
sters  to  steal.  This  he  did,  however,  and  methodically.** 

We  now  have  the  Spartan  young  gentleman  before  us, 
in  perfect  health,  inured  to  excessive  hardships,  perfect 
of  form,  perfectly  naked,  unwashed,  an  adept  at  stealing 
— the  glory  of  the  great  Lycurgus.  In  this  most  pefect 
condition  he  is  intoduced  to  the  ladies — those  celebrated 
Spartan  maidens. 

This  brings  us  to  the  next  ordinance  of  Lycurgus — that 
of  the  calisthenics  and  games.  It  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  we  are  treating  only  of  citizens,  or  the  privileged 
class.  They  were  a  species  of  nobles  and  being  born  with 
the  blood  and  lineage  of  aristocracy  they  disdained  to 
work  for  their  living.  All  ordinary  labor  was  performed 
by  helots  or  slaves.  But  Lycurgus,  although  he,  like  Plato 
and  Aristotle,  disdained  labor,  well  knew  its  necessity 
as  a  bodily  exercise.  Thus  in  lieu  of  labor  he  instituted 

*•  Plutarch,  “Lycuryua.” 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  LADIES . 


585 


his  gymnasium.  Good,  hearty,  honest  labor  in  these  mod¬ 
ern  days,  with  the  ancient  taint  effaced  and  thus  made 
respectable,  is  quite  sufficient  exercise;  and  consequently 
the  gymnasium  has  fallen  into  disuse.  But  with  Lycur- 
gus  labor  was  a  disgrace;  and  the  demand  of  nature  for 
exercise  was  supplied  by  the  calisthenic  games. 

Lycurgus,  therefore,  ordered  that  not  only  the  young 
men  but  also  the  maidens  should  be  vigorously  exercised 
at  the  dances,  games  and  races.  Every  girl  was  a  pro¬ 
fessional  tumbler;  and  the  extent  to  which  they  carried 
their  acrobatic  sports  may  be  judged  from  Plutarch’s 
positive  statement  that  the  young  maidens  performed 
them  in  presence  of  the  ephori  (the  judges  of  excellence 
in  symmetrical  beauty  of  body  and  of  limb  as  well  as  of 
their  winning  powers),  and  before  the  admiring  people 
in  that  innocent  raiment,  which  we  are  told,  decked  the 
bodies  of  Adam  and  of  Eve  in  the  garden  of  Eden.*1 
“Lycurgus  commanded  the  maidens  to  exercise  their 
forms  running,  wrestling,  quoit-pitching  and  hurling 
darts,  with  an  object  to  make  themselves  vigorous  so  that 
their  children  might  afterwards  be  strong.  To  assuage  the 
natural  tenderness  of  their  sex,  he  taught  them  the  habit 
of  being  seen  in  company  with  their  young  male  compan¬ 
ions  and  together  dance  and  sing  at  the  festivals.  At  these 
they  practiced  raillery  and  intellectual  sparring,  criti¬ 
cizing  each  other’s  propriety  of  behavior  which  in  the 
young  men  excited  useful  emulations,  while  their  sallies 
and  satires  often  made  them  smart;  since  the  kings,  the 
senate  and  citizens  were  present.  So  far  as  the  disrobed 
appearance  of  the  virgins  was  concerned  it  was  thought 

nothing  of,  because  the  utmost  decorum  prevailed . 

It  even  inculcates  a  simplicity  in  manners  and  an  ambi¬ 
tion  to  present  the  finest  contour  of  the  body.”  ” 

Marriage  was  compulsory  in  the  Spartan  state;  but  of 
its  details  we  refrain  from  the  particulars,  with  the  re¬ 
mark  that  the  closest  critic,  however  much  our  modern 
habits  have  varied  from  those  of  our  forefathers,  certainly 

n  Dr.  Drumann,  as  if  unable  to  comprehend  how  this  could  be  possible, 
cites  a  story  told  by  Herodotus  “Euterpe.,  viii.  But  on  examination  we 
find  that  there  is  no  argument  here  presented  rebutting  Plutarch.  Besides, 
this  story  refers  to  the  habits  of  persons  of  roj'al  degree,  whereas  our  account 
treats  only  of  common  estate. 

23  Plutarch,  “Lycurgus;”  also  “Lycurgus  and  Numa  Compared.*' 


586 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


cannot  boast  of  any  improved  virtue,  if  purity  of  intention 
and  strict  obedience  to  law  are  the  basis  of  virtue.  But 
Lycurgus  was  probably  the  only  practical  stirpiculturist 
who  ever  enforced  the  scientific  theory.  The  law  of  Mo¬ 
ses  may  be  honorably  regarded  as  an  exception  from  this 
remark.23  The  Spartan  lawgiver  had  been  a  great  trav¬ 
eler  and  there  appears  no  conclusive  evidence  rebutting 
the  possibility  that  he  borrowed  much  of  it  from  the  law 
of  Moses  instituted  four  or  five  hundred  years  before. 
The  law  of  Lycurgus  like  the  ideal  republic  of  Plato  re¬ 
quired  marriage.  But  the  connubial  tie  once  fastened, 
the  community  idea  struck  all  the  married  couples  of  the 
military  classes  and  they  were  at  perfect  liberty  to  bor¬ 
row  and  lend  each  other  according  to  the  passions  and 
caprices  of  the  married  lovers.  This  system  of  hymeneal 
reciprocity  which  never  gave  offense,  was  sanctioned  by 
law  and  was  certainly  recommended  by  physicians  and 
judges  who  attended  to  the  business  of  replenishing  the 
state  with  excellent  offspring.  Indeed,  though  the  law 
of  Lycurgus  was  never  written,  it  is  very  probable  from 
the  accounts  of  the  ancient  authors  themselves,  that  this 
reciprocal  interchange  of  marital  passions  was  arbitrarily 
required.24  If  so,  the  apparent  discrepancy  in  Plato’s  re¬ 
public  which  Aristotle  criticizes,  is  made  clear  and  logi¬ 
cal.  But  it  certainly  makes  a  sham  of  marriage ;  and  pre¬ 
sents  about  as  great  an  apparent  absurdity  as  teaching  the 
young  to  steal  when  their  goods  had  no  value,  being  owned 
and  enjoyed  in  common. 

It  has  already  been  our  sad  duty  to  sketch  the  last  fin¬ 
ishing  touch  of  this  far-famed  government  of  Lycurgus 
in  our  chapter  on  the  Eleusinian  Mysteries.  We  have  there 
recorded  the  assassination  of  those  2,000  workingmen. 
Perhaps  what  we  now  say  in  description  of  the  system  of 
Spartan  government  may  unriddle  the  subtle  philosophy 
which  lurked  at  the  bottom  of  that  and  of  innumerable 
other  mysteries  and  shocking  murders  which  blot  the 
pages  of  Thucydides,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Diodorus,  Plutarch 
and  all  who  have  attempted  to  perpetuate  a  knowledge  of 
the  deeds  of  this  extraordinary  people. 

21  Bible,  “Leviticus,”  xix.,  xx.,  xxi. 

J1  Not  only  Plutarch,  Plato  and  Aristotle,  but  also  Tertullian,  ('“ApaJogy” 
XXXIX.),  confirm  this  statement. 


PUNISHED  FOR  CRUELTY. 


537 


The  laboring  class  of  that  day  were  Greeks.  Some  of 
them  were  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  Lacedaemonian 
citizens;  some  were  Helots,  descendants  of  a  great  tribe 
previously  taken  as  prisoners  of  war  and  reduced  to  slav¬ 
ery.  The  remainder  were  slaves  purchased  from  the  Phoe¬ 
nicians.  These  poor  creatures  did  all  the  drudgery,  pre¬ 
pared  their  food  and  performed  all  those  offices  for  them 
which  they  were  too  proud  to  do  for  themselves.  Great 
strikes  occurred,  as  related  by  H£lian,”  and  the  inhuman¬ 
ity  of  these  arrogant  slaveholders  when  the  reaction  came, 
self-accused  them;  for  taking  advantage  of  a  destructive 
earthquake  in  B.  C.  467,  the  poor  creatures  revolted  or 
engaged  in  a  strike  of  great  proportions;  and  probably, 
as  in  the  strikes  of  Eunus  of  Enna 2*  and  of  Spartacus  at 
Rome,  they  wreaked  redress  through  the  fury  of  armed 
force  first  joining  the  Messenians.  At  any  rate,  amid  the 
earthquake  and  the  strike  more  than  20,000  Spartans 
perished,  and  the  survivors  for  a  long  period  of  time  held 
a  self-accusing  superstition  that  the  calamity  was  their 
punishment  for  their  cruelty  to  the  working  class. 

Thus,  for  the  plan  of  Lycurgus,  we  have  the  following 
synopsis:  Planted,  according  to  Herodotus,  B.  C.  about 
990;  according  to  Thucydides,  830;  equality  recognized; 
communism  of  goods  and  children;  kings  maintained; 
labor  disgraced;  taint  of  labor,  and  the  working  popula¬ 
tion  damned. 

Results  as  follows:  The  secret  Cryptia;  constant  fear 
of  the  dangerous  outcasts;  final  downfall  of  the  system 
after  a  trial  of  500  years. 

Of  the  plant  of  Numa  Pompilius  we  have  already  suffi¬ 
ciently  spoken.*1  This  system  began  something  like  B.  C. 
690;  a  non-warfare  kingdom;  labor  recognized;  workmen 
highly  esteemed;  trade  unionism  established  by  law; 
nomenclature  of  their  organizations  made  by  Numa  him¬ 
self;  the  members  of  the  unions  employed  by  the  state; 
peace,  tranquility  and  great  prosperity  of  Rome  for  43 
years,  or  until  Numa’s  death  and  after  that  event,  wars; 
but  the  unions  now  turn  their  energies  to  the  manufac¬ 
ture  of  the  implements  of  war  greatly  facilitating  the  Ro- 

25  ^lian,  “Historia  Varia,”  I. 

*•  See  supra.  Chapter  VI. 

**  Consult  “Index”  to  this  volume;  points  on  Numa  Pompiliu*. 


538 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


mail  arms ;  so  the  state  continues,  and  encourages  the  unions 
for  over  500  years. 

Among  the  ancient  Indo-Europeans  there  were  from  the 
time  of  Aristotle,  331-322  B.  C.  two  distinct  lines  of  reasoning; 
those  of  Aristotle  and  those  of  Plato.  We  are  not  at  all  un¬ 
aware  that  neither  of  these  great  men  was  the  originator  of  the 
doctrine  he  taught ;  for  both  are  known  to  have  borrowed  for 
their  celebrated  states,  from  others  more  ancient  and  less  known. 
But  for  our  purpose  we  must  recognize  them  as  they  are  recog¬ 
nized  by  the  world. 

Plato  believed  that  all  good  came  from  a  supernatural  source. 
Every  thing  good  was,  as  it  were,  handed  down  from  on  high. 
This  pleased  the  manipulators  of  the  priestcraft  of  his  age;  for 
it  sanctioned  their  mysticism.  It  permitted  and  continued  the 
lordly  power  of  the  gods  whose  abodes  were  high  on  the  Olym¬ 
pian  thrones.  Power  was  seated  in  heaven,  the  vaulted  firmament, 
the  “ouranos.”  The  manipulators  of  this  power  were  the  great 
immortals  such  as  Jupiter  and  other  celestials — all  the  great 
gods  and  goddesses  whose  names  and  fame  have  come  down  to 
us  enshrined  in  classic  majesty  and  mystified  in  a  vesture  of 
inimitable,  captivating  beauty.  The  marvels  of  that  ancient 
political  religion  are  made  more  awfully  supernal  by  this  great 
and  good  teacher  having  lived  and  labored.  Nor  must  we  spurn 
Plato’s  views  because  our  age  has  outgrown  them.  In  the  bigotry 
and  empiricism  to  which  many  ardent  and  honest  persons  cleave,28 
they  are  apt  ^o  treat  with  unforgiving  frowns,  his  earnest  belief 
in  practices  which  we,  in  having  tried,  have  found  impracticable, 
sometimes  abominable.  We  translate  expressly  for  these  pages 
from  Plato’s  Gorgias,  what  he  makes  Socrates  say  about  work¬ 
ingmen  :  “There  exists  a  two-fold  employment ;  it  creates  food, 
beverages,  clothes  and  such  other  things  as  the  body  needs.  We 
get  such  things  from  shop-keepers  and  from  country  folks  and 
they  have  them  prepared  for  them  by  the  cook,  baker,  weaver, 
shoemaker  and  tanner.  But  the  healing  art  and  the  knowledge 
of  gymnastics  necessarily  preside  over  many  of  these  trades  be¬ 
cause  they  foretell  what  the  body  wants.  The  working  people, 
therefore,  are  slavish  and  unworthy  to  associate  with  free  peo- 

28  Dr.  Bucher,  “Aufstande  der  unfrein  Arbeiter,”  S.  132,  pointedly 
puts  it  as :  “Wust  von  Halbwisserei  und  Phrasenthum.” 


WORKING  PEOPLE  CALLED  “ SLAVE-SOULS .”  530 


pie.”29  In  another  of  Plato’s  writings  is  the  remark  that  the 
laboring  population,  who  produce  what  the  body  requires  are, 
notwithstanding  their  servility  “indispensable ;  and  for  this  rea¬ 
son,  they  must  be  admitted  into  the  republic.”30 

Again,  Plato  acknowledges  that  workingmen  and  women  who 
understand  these  mysteries  of  art  “know  what  others  do  not 
know.  They  are  educated  so  far  as  their  peculiar  art  requires. 
They  know  how  to  build  houses,  ships,  and  to  do  other  work 
and  in  consequence,  must  sometimes  be  admitted  into  the  as¬ 
sembly  meetings  even  though  the  Athenians  laugh  when  ignorant 
people  take  the  floor  to  explain.31  In  matters  of  the  state  where 
such  is  needed,  this  right  of  explanation  is  given  to  every  one. 
Now  these  workingmen,  “demiourgoi,”  because  they  know  the 
mysteries  of  their  art,  like  the  poets,  imagine  they  know  every¬ 
thing,  being  clever  at  their  mechanic  arts.  But  they  are  sadly 
wanting  in  manners,  mostly,  of  course,  from  lack  of  leisure  time 
without  which  a  good  education  is  impossible.  All  they  learn 
is  what  their  calling  requires;  for  knowledge  of  its  intrinsic 
self  they  have  no  appreciation,  it  having  no  charm  for  them.”32 
They  busy  themselves  with  mathematics  only  so  far  as  it  has 
practical  contact  with  their  business — not  to  enjoy  a  pleasure  in 
the  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  numbers.  In  themselves  they 
have  not  the  power  to  strive  for  higher  things,  for  mechanical 
craftsmanship  brutifies  them.  The  business  man,  “chrematistikos,” 
declares  that  pleasure  in  honors  and  learning  is  valueless  in  com¬ 
parison  with  money-getting.33  Ambition  for  honors  considers  the 
pleasure  of  amassing  lucre  to  be  mean,  and  also  ambition  for 
learning  if  it  fail  to  produce  honors.  Vapors  and  tricks  bring  the 
philosopher  no  such  pleasure  and  joy  as  the  knowledge  of  truth.34 
Be  the  smiths,  carpenters,  shoemakers  ever  so  skilled  in  their 
work  as  artificers,  the  most  of  them  are  but  slave-souls  not  able 
to  comprehend  what  is  good  and  just.35  Lofty-heartedness  and 

29  Plato,  “Gorgias,”  155,  517-518. 

30  Idem,  “Republic,”  369-372. 

31  “Apology  of  Socrates,”  22. 

82  Plato,  “Protagoras,”  319.  Consult  Xenophon,  “Memorabilia  of 
Socrates,”  II.,  7. 

33  Xenophon,  Public  Economics  of  Athens,”  IV.,  6. 

34  Plato,  “Republic,”  IX.,  581. 

35  Compare  Xenophon,  “Memorabilia,”  IV.,  ii.,  22. 


540 


PLANS 


LS . 


heartedness  and  nobleness  <■;  impulse  are  in  vain  to  be 
sought  for  among  them.  It  is  quite  another  thing,  this 
learning  a  trade  and  educating  an  honest  man. 

We  elsewhere  show  by  producing  his  own  words  what 
Cicero  thought  of  the  poor  working  people.  His  con¬ 
tempt  for  them  is  still  greater. 

Aristotle  in  most  respects  is  in  perfect  accord  with 
Plato  in  this  kind  of  talk  against  the  working  people. 
Here  is  what  he  thinks: 

Humanity  must  be  divided  into  several  classes:  citizen 
cultivators,  and  artisans,  busied  with  the  arts  necessary 
to  the  welfare  of  the  state.  These  two  great  classes  are 
acknowledged  to  come  first;  not  from  the  respect  he  en¬ 
tertains  for  them,  but  probably  on  account  of  the  fact 
well  known  in  Aristotle’s  time,  that  they  were  very  numer¬ 
ous  everywhere. 

Then  comes,  as  the  third  class,  the  dealers.  These  are 
designated  to  be  the  shop-keepers  and  merchants. 

The  day  laborers  or  wage-earners  constitute  the  fourth 
class.  They  have  some  slight  independence,  being  no 
longer  slaves,  but  freedmen. 

Soldiers  constitute  the  fifth  class.  They  do  the  fight¬ 
ing;  and  agreeably  to  the  nature  of  ancient  civilization 
this  fighting  material  that  obtains  nourishment  without 
producing,  is  what  modern  enlightenment  begins  to  rec¬ 
ognize  as  plunderers  and  robbers. 

The  sixth  class  is  that  of  the  judges. 

The  seventh  class  undertakes  the  duties  of  the  prac¬ 
tical  work  of  the  state.  It  consists  of  rich  men. 

To  the  eighth  belong  the  optimates  or  men  of  blood  of 
still  higher  quality,  such  as  hail  from  an  exalted  family 
or  race,  as  a  “gens” — gentlemen  or  aristocrats,  born  of 
God  with  that  supernal  gift,  the  immortal  soul.  These, 
according  to  this  teacher  of  Alexander  the  Great,  were 
fitted  to  be  the  advising  statesmen.  They  are  the  finish¬ 
ing  class,  coming  highest  above  all. 

“Many  times  several  of  these  different  callings  can  be 
united  into  one;  but  occupations  uniting  poor  and  rich 
into  one  person  cannot  be  allowed.”  88 

The  artisans  and  skilled  mechanics  whom  Aristotle  de- 

u  Aristotle,  “Politics,”  IV.,  li.,  11-16. 


THE  GREAT  ARISTOTLE'S  CURSE 


541 


nominates  "technitai,”  or  “banausoi  technitai,”  are  next  to 
the  slaves  in  lowliness  and  meanness.  Aristotle  makes  their 
existence  a  sort  of  servitude.  But  some  writers  think 
that  this  philosopher  places  them  a  little  more  distant 
or  farther  from  abject  servitude  than  the  slaves;  for  they 
are  beyond  the  reach  of  the  lash,  except  in  aggravated 
cases.  The  difference  is  that  the  slave  proper  serves  the 
collective  individual  or  state,  while  the  artisan  serves  the 
person  who  employs  him;  and  thus  the  inference  is  that 
the  ideal  political  state  of  Aristotle  gets  the  labor  of 
skilled  workmen  by  contract,  or  in  a  second-hand  fashion.*7 

Aristotle  says  that  in  former  times  the  skilled  artisans, 
or  the  class  embracing  all  mechanics,  were  slaves;  and 
even  at  his  day  (B.  C.  330),  there  were  skilled  slaves  in 
many  of  the  Greek  states.**  This  statement  is  valuable, 
as  it  shows  the  immense  progress  of  abolition;  and  if  we 
take  notice  of  his  other  equally  important  hint,  that  all 
sorts  of  precautions  had  to  be  resorted  to  for  preventing 
those  dangerous  revolts,  and  couple  this  with  the  fact  that 
there  were  great  anti-slave  organizations,  as  shown  by  the 
numerous  inscriptions  still  extant,  and  which  have  been 
described  in  our  previous  chapters,  we  may  better  un¬ 
derstand  the  importance  of  history  wriften  from  a  social 
standpoint. 

Aristotle  teaches  that  inasmuch  as  the  largest  part  of 
the  working  class  must  be  allotted  to  attend  to  agricul¬ 
ture  and  the  flocks,  their  life  inuring  them  to  out-of-door 
employments,  they  were  for  the  ideal  state  best  fitted  for 
the  muscular  work  of  warfare.  Their  spiritual  and  bodily 
powers  naturally  develop  more  than  those  of  persons  en¬ 
gaged  in  business  of  the  market  or  of  the  city  who  press 
among  the  crowds." 

Aristotle  thinks  that  for  his  perfect  government  it  is 
advisable  to  have  slaves  work  as  agricultural  laborers;  and 
especially  those  who  have  no  yearnings  for  a  home  they 
have  been  deprived  of,  and  so  no  foremost  desires.  Such 
laborers  would  be  more  useful,  and  would  have  no  incen¬ 
tives  to  revolt." 

Aristotle  makes  the  execution  of  work,  for  the  artisans 

47  Aristotle,  “Politics,"  Ill.,  iii.,  §  3. 

**  rdom,  III.,  ii.,  §9.  “  Td.,  VI.,  fi. .  §  fl-7. 

«  Idt-iii,  “Politics,”  VTI.,  lx.,  $  9.  «  Id.,  iv.t  $  ft. 


648 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


to  be  that  which  bruises  the  body  worst;  the  task  set  for 
slaves,  to  be  that  which  the  body  is  in  greatest  need  of; 
and  for  the  most  ignoble,  that  in  which  the  least  amount 
of  intellectual  force  is  required."  This  is  exactly  what 
would  most  effectively  belittle  a  man  and  develop  beast¬ 
liness  within  him. 

The  farmers,  mechanics  and  day  laborers  cannot  be 
dispensed  with;  but  the  management  of  warfare  and  the 
giving  advice  and  legal  counsel  belong  strictly  to  the  citi¬ 
zen  class  who  do  not  work.  The  laboring  class  coming 
under  the  categories  mentioned  cannot  become  either 
office-holders  or  priests."  They  must  not  be  admitted  to 
hold  office;  for  in  well  regulated  communities  they  are 
not  citizens  as  they  have  no  duty  of  citizenship  to  fulfill 
and  their  incapable  condition  prevents  it,  the  same  as  in 
children,  slaves,  free  communers  under  protection,  and 
strangers." 

This  philosopher  further  degrades  the  despised  work¬ 
ers  by  his  opinion  that  labor  stupefies  and  deteriorates 
both  mind  and  body.  It  creates  roughness  and  makes 
people  hoyden  “phortikoi,”  or  uncouth,  depriving  them  of 
their  dignity.  Neither  the  good  statesman  nor  the  good 
citizen  can  tolerate  labor.44 

Labor  also  leaves  no  time  for  public  business.  Only 
land-owners  and  well-to-do  people  who  are  citizens  can 
rejoice  ia  leisure  time." 

If  the  optimates  or  better  people  wish  to  remain  faith¬ 
ful  to  their  destiny  and  their  dignity  they  learn  nothing 
of  skill  for  the  sake  of  earning  from  it,  neither  do  they 
learn  music  superabundantly,  as  sometimes  is  the  case 
now  where  people  engage  in  emulous  contest  in  it  for  the 
profits  accruing  from  out-doing  one  another;  they  only 
learn  it  so  far  as  necessary  to  enjoy  its  delicious  melody 
and  rhythm.4*  This  most  detestable  clause  in  Aristotle's 
politics  has  long  since  crumbled  away  before  Christianity’s 
well  tried  precept.  “The  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire”47 
— one  of  our  bulwarks  of  democratical  government. 

Aristotle's  oligarchy  emphatically  forbids  work  people 
the  right  of  citizenship,  especially  the  day  wage  earners. 

"  Id.,  “Pol.,”  VII. ,  viii.,  §  0;  III.,  ill.,  *,  “  Id.,  IH.,  ill.,  2,  7. 

44  Id.,  “Pol.,”  m.,  iii.,  9.  44  Id.,  VII.,  viii.,  5,  8. 

44  Id.,  “Pol.,”  VIII.,  vi.,  4.  •  Hew  Testament,  “Luke,”  7. 


MS 


Lucian's  run  ice  nr  a  tea nn. 

Where  a  skilled  artisan  attains  to  wealth  he  may,  in 
the  ideal  state,  become  a  citizen.48  Under  the  Pagan  re¬ 
gime  this  narrow  and  contemptuous  ruling  is  thought  fit 
for  an  oligarchy  based  on  optimates  and  slaves. 

Theophrastus  who,  after  Aristotle’s  withdrawal,  suc¬ 
ceeded  to  the  Lyceum,  described  the  wage-earning  class  as 
domestics  or  slaves  at  large — that  of  “people  who  shame¬ 
lessly  drive  taverns  and  brothels.  They  are  also  known 
as  mercenaries  and  hucksters  who  live  on  the  gains  of 
gambling,  lottery-booths  and  cook-shops,  gulping  up  the 
dishonorable  winnings  and  letting  their  own  mothers 
starve/’4* 

Demosthenes,  still  considered  high  authority  in  many 
things,  is  not  much  milder.  He  railed  at  /Eschines  be¬ 
cause  he  was  the  son  of  a  sausage  man  in  very  poor  cir¬ 
cumstances." 

Demosthenes  like  Cicero  despised  the  lowly.  <fHe  who 
carries  on  low  and  despisable  business  must  not  be  ex¬ 
pected  to  exhibit  deeds  of  moral  quality;  for  men  are  al¬ 
ways  in  reality,  in  thought  and  in  deed,  what  their  call¬ 
ing  in  life  designates.  This  is  a  logical  necessity.” 81 

Lucian  the  satyrist  of  the  second  century  of  our  era, 
who  spoke  and  wrote  the  best  classic  Greek  although  of 
Samosata  350  miles  to  the  north  of  Nazareth,  was  poor 
and  undertook  to  learn  sculpture.  Breaking  a  partly  fin¬ 
ished  slab  of  marble  and  getting  soundly  punished  for  it, 
he  left  his  master  and  went  home  where  he  dreamed  out 
his  ideal  of  the  relative  merits  of  art  and  science.  The 
dream  was,  that  two  young  females,  one  called  Art  and 
the  other  Learning,  were  in  love  with  a  certain  young 
man.  Each  sought  to  win  him  by  the  comparative  merit 
of  her  trade.  Art,  as  Lucian  portrays  it,  appears  before 
him  clad'  in  the  dirty  overalls  of  the  workingman,  specked 
with  marble-dust,  hands  calloused  with  hard  work.  She 
promised  him  a  good  income,  a  strong  healthy  physique, 
and  reminded  him  of  the  glory  of  Phidias,  Polycletus  and 
other  great  masters. 

Science  on  the  other  hand,  advanced  the  argument: 

«  Aristotle,  “Politics,”  HI.,  ii.,  8;  iii.,  3. 

m  Theophrastus,  “Ethical  Characters,”  vi.,  B.  C.  about  290. 

••  Diogenes  Laertes,  II.,  7;  I. 

Demosthenes,  “Olynth.,  Orationes  Attic®, ”  T.,  4. 


544 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


“As  a  sculptor  thou  art  but  an  artisan,  without  celebrity, 
of  mean  low  mental  status;  one  only  of  a  vast  mass  of 
humanity.  Shouldst  thou  become  a  Phidias  or  a  Poly- 
cletus  and  build  for  the  world  wonderful  and  admirable 
productions,  then  indeed  would  every  one  admire  thy  art; 
but  no  reasonable  creature  desires  thy  part;  for  however 
cunning  thou  mayest  become,  thou  thyself  art  forever 
doomed  to  remain  only  a  mere  laborer/’ 82  This  ancient 
taint  received  its  death  blow  under  the  rules  of  Jesus;  so 
much  so  that  no  such  contempt  attaches  to  Raphael,  Leon¬ 
ardo  da  Vinci  or  Michael  Angelo.  Work,  from  the  very 
first  has  been  not  only  honorable,  but  correctly  considered, 
a  means  of  measuring  honor  and  worth.  Thus  a  complete 
revolution. 

Plutarch,  styled  the  honorable,  just  and  fair  critic  of 
human  character  and  its  dealings  with  the  ethics  of  men, 
is  equally  severe  against  the  laboring  class.  He  writes, 
about  A.D.  75-80:  “Virtuous  dealings  only  allure  imita¬ 
tions,  morally  considered;  quite  different  with  other,  and 
often  more  material  things,  for  these  we  may  admire 
without  desiring  to  ourselves  do  similarly.  On  the  con¬ 
trary  we  despise  the  authors  of  works  we  are  delighted 
with.  People  love  unguents  and  purple  raiment  but  per¬ 
fumers  and  dyers  are  considered  to  be  mean  handicrafts¬ 
men,  nothing  more.  Antisthenes  the  cynic  most  wisely 
said,  when  they  were  applauding  Ismenias  for  the  deli¬ 
cious  tones  of  his  flute:  ‘Very  fine  music’  said  the  philos~ 
opher.  ‘He  belongs  to  the  meaner  sort,  otherwise  he 
could  not  play  so  finely.’ 

“Philip  of  Macedon  reproached  his  son  Alexander  who 
learned  to  play  the  cithara  at  a  neighboring  inn,  with  the 
words.  “Art  thou  not  ashamed  to  play  so  well?  Honor 
enough  for  the  muses  when  a  king  dignifies  them  by 
becoming  their  audience.  But  whoever  degrades  him¬ 
self  by  making  it  a  mean,  low  business  betrays  his  indif¬ 
ference  toward  the  beautiful  and  good.  No  young  man 
with  preferred  natural  gifts  wishes,  under  the  eye  of  Ju¬ 
piter  in  Pisa,  or  of  Heres  in  Argos,  to  become  a  Phidias 
or  a  Polycletus;  nor  an  Anacreon,  Philemon  or  Archi¬ 
lochus  because  delighted  by  their  poetry.  It  follows  not 
that  we  should  treasure  him  whose  works  do  excite  our 

M  Luciaa,  “Somnium,  6-9. 


EVEN  PLUTARCH  LAMPOONS  THEM.  545 


odmiration  and  joy” 58  We  have  here  given  our  own  ren¬ 
dering.  The  sense  is  so  imperfectly  brought  out  by  any 
translation  that  we  are  unable  to  use  it. 64  Though  the 
labor  product  was  admired,  the  creator  of  it  was  despised. 
To  us  moderns  this  is  almost  incomprehensible.  Quite  so. 
except  we  recognize  the  gradual  inroads  upon  the  ancient 
family  blood,  and  its  ultimate  uprooting,  through  the 
resistance  to  the  insult  by  labor  itself,  backed  by  the 
new  regime. 

Again,  Plutarch,  writing  on  education,  cares  nothing 
for  any  one  but  the  rich  ;  the  remainder  might  as  well  be 
resigned  to  their  fate  which  had  not  favored  them.65 

The  brother-in-law  of  Phocion,  that  is,  brother  of  his 
first  wife,  Cephisotodus  by  name,  lived  by  his  art  as  sculp¬ 
tor,  and  the  family  were  not  considered  first  citizens  of 
th*  city.  Phocion  was  one  of  the  very  few  generals  of  an¬ 
cient  times  who  rose  from  the  ranks.  His  own  father 
was  a  pestle-maker  by  trade.66  Yet  he  himself  always  had 
an  openly  expressed  contempt  for  the  working  people. 

Alexander  was  initiated  into  the  study  of  natural  history 
by  Aristotle.  He  was  of  opinion  that  he  could  perform' 
useful  services  at  healing;  and  actually  performed  heal¬ 
ing  acts  in  his  empire.67  The  news  that  the  father  of  Eu- 
menes  had  for  a  profession  that  of  flute-playing  at  fu¬ 
nerals  in  the  Thracian  Cheronesus  by  which  to  make  a  liv¬ 
ing  for  himself  and  family7,  was  trumped  up  by  the  Mac¬ 
edonian  dignitaries  who  were  loth  to  permit  Grecians  in 
their  territory,  Eumenes  being  a  stranger.  The  father 
was  a  respectable  man ;  at  any  rate  he  was  a  table-mate 
of  Philip  the  king.58  But  the  whole  affair  shows  the  con¬ 
tempt  that  was  universally  felt  against  labor.  Agathocles, 
Tyrant  of  Syracuse,  began  his  career  as  a  potter  in  the 
middle  of  the  fourth  century  before  Christ.  In  commem¬ 
oration  of  his  former  calling  he  used  to  put  earthen  pots 
and  jugs  beside  golden  ones.69  But  the  native  pride  of 
the  Greeks  seldom  permitted  them  to  humiliate  them- 

**  Plutarch,  Pericles ,  1-3. 

MFor  much  that  is  valuable  on  the  whimsical  contempt  felt  by  the  anoien| 
aristocrats  against  labor,  see  Drumann’s  magnificent  researches,  in  Arbcite? 
und  Communitten  in  Griechenland  und  Rom,  passim, 

« Plutarch,  De  Fuerum  Educations,  il.  Mid.,  Phocion,  4  and  19, 

67  Id.  Alexander ,  8.  ' 

«8 Cornelius  Nepos,  Eumenes,  1;  .Elian,  1;  Plutarch,  Eumenes. 

59 Plutarch,  Apothegms,  reg.  et  imp.;  Atheneeue,  Deipnosophista  11,  18 j 
Polybius,  Histories,  12,  18;  15,  35. 


64  0 


PLAN'S  AND  MODELS, 


selves  in  this  manner,  or  to  pull  men  up  out  of  the  dark 
pits  of  disgrace,  like  that  of  labor,  to  a  place  of  recognized 
honor. 

But  notwithstanding  all  the  influence  of  the  taint  there 
were  strong  men  who,  knowing  within  their  hearts  that 
labor  was  honorable,  dared  to  be  brave.  Thus  in  the  third 
century  before  Christ  it  was  not  expected  of  Clean thes  the 
follower  of  Zeno  in  the  Stoa,  that  he  should  seek  to  con¬ 
ceal  the  night-work  on  which,  at  his  trade,  he  earned  his 
living  to  strengthen  him  for  delivering  his  lectures  be¬ 
fore  the  A  reopagi  or  in  the  more  private  school- work  con¬ 
nected  with  his  useful  life.60 

Iphicrates  was  a  low-born  man;  according  to  some  the 
son  of  a  shoemaker.  When  Harmodius  whose  kinsman 
Pisistratides  the  hipparch,  treated  Iphicrates  with  contu¬ 
mely  on  account  of  it,  the  latter  replied:  “My  race  begins 
with  me,  thine  ceases  with  thee.” 61  This  is  another  scin¬ 
tillation  giving  light  to  the  dark  chasms  of  contempt  into 
which  honest  industry  was  sunk. 

Attalus  HI.,  whose  crazy  tricks  caused  a  great  deal  of 
unnecessary  persecution  of  the  slaves  and  freedmen  of 
Pergamos  and  vicinity  over  -which  he  reigned,  seems  to 
have  had  the  labor  question  uppermost  in  his  brain.  He 
was  the  last  of  the  Pergamenian  monarchs.  There  ap¬ 
pears  reason  to  conjecture  that  he  feared  an  insurrection 
of  the  slaves,  which  caused  him  to  bargain  away  to  the 
Romans  his  inheritance ;  presumably  to  get  their  protec¬ 
tion  from  his  dreaded  enemies  at  home.  He  was  in  the 
habit  of  putting  to  torture  his  suspects;  and  to  perfect 
his  art  in  cruelty  became  a  practical  gardener,  taking  les¬ 
sons  in  the  chemistry  of  gardening  in  order  to  produce'his 
own  poisons  with  which  to  kill  numbers  of  imaginary  foes. 
With  these  poisonous  plants  he  practiced  and  toyed  until 
his  death.  Immediately  after  that  event  a  great  insur¬ 
rection  broke  out  for  the  succession,  in  which  the  slaves 
and  free  organized  workingmen  sided  with  the  preten¬ 
der,  a  bana, us  or  laborer  and  an  illegitimate,  against  the 
legitimate  successor.  This  was  the  Aristonicus  whose 
great  slave  rebellion — one  of  the  hugest  of  ancient  times 
— we  have  already  described  in  our  chapter  on  ancient 

«Diogenas  >,  £>. 

#>  Aristotle,  Rkrtunc,  >,  j,  the  Utio,  ih  w  %ba.  i  a*  #  Do  c*t>.  Jl, 


POISONING  THE  WORKINGMEN. 


547 


slave  rebellions.62  Diocletian  planted  upon  grounds  of  his 
private  estate  at  Salona,  poisonous  and  other  noxious 
plants.  For  what  exact  purpose  we  are  not  properly  in¬ 
formed.  But  he  wrote  a  work  on  horticulture.  We  make 
these  remarks  to  remind  our  readers  of  the  rapidly  on¬ 
ward  marching  strides  of  Christianity  and  the  social  rev¬ 
olution  already  in  Diocletian’s  time  beginning  to  be  felt. 

When  a  boy,  Alexander  who  was  swift  at  the  races,  was 
asked  if  he  would  match  hin  self  with  the  competitors. 
“Yes”  he  retorted  :  “I  would  had  I  kings  to  race  with/* 
Plutarch  relates  this  story  fs  an  illustration  of  the  con¬ 
querors  virtues.63  The  facts  are  that  at  the  races  the  fleet¬ 
est  men  were  matched  sometimes  irrespective  of  birth  or 
trade  ;  but  the  future  corqueror  of  the  world  was  too 
proud  to  humble  himself  by  setting  a  democratic  example. 
\Y e  may  remark  that  little  progress  has  since  been  made 
by  way  of  extinguishing  this  foolish  pride. 

m  the  manufactories,  ergasteric,  most  of  the  ancient 
workmen  were  s1  aves,  and  the  states  of  Greece  sometimes, 
(  specially  in  war  in  which  the  poor  creatures  had  no  pa¬ 
triotic  interest,  lost  heavily  by  their  running  away  to  find 
work,  more  liberty  and  better  fare.  During  the  Pelopon¬ 
nesian  war  20,000  slaves  decamped  from  Attica  where 
they  were,  as  property  of  the  state,  at  work  making  the 
machinery  clothing  and  equipments  of  that  celebrated  and 
prolonged  conflict.  But  whither?  Directly  over  to  the 
Spartan  garrison  at  Decelea,  the  armories  of  the  deadly 
and  jealous  enemies  of  Athenians  who  were  hilt  to  hilt 
in  the  fierce  fray  for  the  hegemony  of  the  Hellenic  Pen¬ 
insula  !  Here  the  20,000  workmen  wheeled  their  brawn 
and  brain  into  arms  and  munitions  which  undoubtedly  de¬ 
cided  the  great  struggle  against  the  Athenians,64 

The  orator  Lysias  owned  a  shield  factory,  aspidopegeion , 
in  which  he  had  120  slaves,  property  of  the  estate,  and 
probably  in  company  with  his  brother  Polemarch.  Thirty 
of  the  slaves  fell  upon  and  murdered  Polemarch  for  his 
money,  Slaves  were  verv  dangerous  in  ancient  days.65 

If  the  student  of  sociology  is  at  a  loss  to  understand  the 
causes  of  Demosthenes’  slurs  at  iEsehines,  and  the  bitter. 

*°  Bucher,  Aufstam.de  der  unfreien  Arbeiler  S.  100-114. 

68  Plutarch.  Alexander. 

Thucydides,  De  Bello  Feloponnesiaco,  Vil.,  27;  chap.  in  this  work. 

“  KratoathtiDCH,  OrcUio,  Lys. 


548 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


ness  of  his  eloquence  twitting  him  of  mean  "birth,  let  him 
read  Xenophen  and  others  of  his  own  period.  Demos¬ 
thenes  was  owner  by  inheritance  of  two  manufactories; 
one,  a  butcherknife  and  the  other  a  bedstead  factory. 
The  knife  shop  netted  him  a  sum  of  30  mi?tae,  $541.50  an¬ 
nually,  and  the  mechanics,  32  in  number  who  performed 
the  labor,  were  slaves,  and  his  own  property.  The  bed¬ 
stead  factory  turned  out  goods  yielding  12  minae  net,  or 
$  216.60  of  earnings  with  the  labor  of  20  slaves.  But  the 
relative  value  of  money  was  enormous  compared  with  to¬ 
day.  The  total  net  income  from  the  labor  of  these  52  slaves 
working  for  him  in  the  two  factories  amounted  to  42  minae , 
$  758.10.  After  the  death  of  his  father  and  a  settling  of 
all  indebtedness,  an  inventory  disclosed  the  fact  that  the 
business  was  prosperous  and  a  large  stock  of  manufac¬ 
tured  articles  and  also  of  raw  material  was  left  clear.66 

Eunus  the  slave  was  a  prophet.  He  foretold  to  his  fol¬ 
lowers  at  Enna  in  Sicily,  the  fact  that  he,  being  a  Syrian, 
a  prophet  of  Antioch,  was  to  become  a  king  ;  and  that  hie 
work  should  be  the  seed  of  an  all-spreading  revolution 
which  should  break  the  bondsmen’s  cords. 

This  is  sufficient  to  show  that  Eunus  had  also  his  plan 
of  salvation,  like  all  the  reformers  of  ancient  days.  Hia 
method,  however,  of  realizing  it  varied  from  that  of  Ly* 
curgus  and  Plato  and  Aristotle,  about  in  proportion  with 
his  comparative  condition.  The  aristocrats  were  edu¬ 
cated  and  refined  men  ;  whereas,  Eunus  was  a  poor  slave, 
without  letters.  And  what  was  this  plan  ?  It  was  based 
on,  and  carried  out,  entirely  from  the  central  idea  of  ex¬ 
tinction,  by  an  almost  complete  extermination  of  the  ruling 
and  possessing  class,  and  the  rebuilding  of  an  empire  oi 
government  upon  the  same  ground,  but  out  of  the  purely 
laboring  element — in  other  words,  the  exact  equality  of 
all  men.  It  is  perhaps  the  first  purely  anarchical  idea 
ever  put  in  full  force  and  practically  carried  out  upon  a 
vast  scale.  Furthermore — :and  logically  too — it  struck 
the  world  just  at  the  time  when,  according  to  Polybius, 
Pome  commenced  to  decay.  It  succeeded,  and  logically 
enough,  to  the  slave-crammed  populations  in  Plato’s  ideal 
republic  of  the  “Blessed for  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that 
through  his  immensely  popular  philosophy,  he  had  indoc- 

*6 Xenophon,  Memorabilia,  II.,  T ;  Demosthenes,  Oratto,  V.,  106,  9. 


PLAN  OF  ANAR  CHISTS  TA  UGHT  A  LESSON.  549 


trinated  all  Rome — and  her  naturally  savage  military  dis¬ 
position — with  the  needful  excuse  for  spreading  this 
beastly  institution  of  slavery.  Eunus  with  his  cataclysmal 
arms  in  Sicily,  and  Gracchus  with  his  magnificent  powers 
of  family  prestige,  wealth  and  natural  manhood,  at  Rome, 
fought  a  contest  against  Plato  and  the  insolent  lords  for 
just  10  years,  such  as,  search  the  records  as  we  will,  are 
not  elsewhere  to  be  found  in  the  annals  of  history,  ancient 
or  modern.  Eunus  began  by  an  extermination  of  his  en¬ 
emies,  the  slave-holding  rich.  He  marched  his  first  force 
into  Enna,  as  related  in  our  ninth  chapter  and  began  his 
work  of  blood  and  devastation  the  same  hour,  without 
giving  either  forewarning  or  quarter.  As  his  masters  had 
been  merciless  to  the  slave,  so  his  plan  of  salvation  was 
merciless  to  them.  To  stamp  out  the  entire  race  of  op- 
timates  was  his  bent  and  determination,  leaving  none  even 
to  tell  the  tale  of  woe.67  It  was  the  “eye-for-eve  and  tooth- 
for-tooth  ”  referred  to  by  a  later  Messiah  in  his  great  ser¬ 
mon  on  the  Mount,  after  the  unfortunate  but  indispen- 
.  sable  experience  of  these  “men  of  old  time”  had  proved 
to  him  the  futility  of  the  plan  of  Eunus. 

Plato  had  been  dead  but  a  couple  of  centuries.  Rome 
had  grasped  his  popular  idea  of  government  embracing 
an  aristocracy  grounded  in  human  slavery.  She  had 
surged  into  the  great  waves  of  warfare  with  the  exact  ad¬ 
vice  of  Plato  in  his  “Republic  of  the  Blessed!”  and  she 
was  working  to  the  master’s  lines.  Slaves  innumerable 
thronged  into  the  marts  as  Rome’s  prisoners  of  war. 
Eunus,  one  of  them,  was  a  prophet  and  his  beloved  god¬ 
dess,  as  he  frankly  believed,  was  directing  him  through 
this  storm  of  vengeance  and  of  blood.  It  was  anarchy — 
a  chaos  of  human  life  among  a  vast  population;  for  Sic¬ 
ily  at  that  time  was  populous.  Dionysius  the  tyrant  had 
built  his  yawning  prison-workshops  and  these  ergastula 
had  been  copied  into  every  city  and  hamlet.  Eunus  set 
at  liberty  from  these  horrid  slave-dens  60,000  workmen, 
who  swelled  his  ranks  to  a  vast  army  of  200,000  warriors, 
all  of  whom  by  his  edict  of  emancipation,  became  des¬ 
troyers  of  Sicilian  and  Roman  life.  Devastation ! 

#IWe  And  in  Diodorus,  Histories ,  the  statement,  quoted  supra,  p.  200, 
that  Antigenes,  one  of  the  rich  men,  was  exempted  from  his  vengeance  on  ac¬ 
count  of  a  previous  promise ;  as  was  also  the  case  with  the  kind-hearted  daugh¬ 
ter  of  Damophilua  (p.  206). 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


m 

But  who,  when  he  calmly  looks  at  the  general  condi¬ 
tions,  after  the  brave  words  of  Diodorus  in  his  noble 
but  tattered  fragments  of  history  of  this  terrible  episode 
of  retribution,  will  say  that  even  the  scourging,  adminis¬ 
tered  to  those  haughty  millionaires,  did  not  work  an  al¬ 
most  inestimable  good?  Were  not  these  lessons  neces¬ 
sary  ?  Did  not  the  world,  in  its  tardy  development  out 
of  barbarism,  learn  by  the  sorriest  experience  the  deeper, 
more  fundamental  expression  of  reason,  incrusted  in  the 
then,  and  for  ages  afterwards,  unfathomable  words  of  ad¬ 
vice  vouchsafed  us  by  the  last  of  the  prophets  and  Mes¬ 
siah’s  to  wit:  that  kindly  treatment  was  as  coals  of  fire 
upon  their  hard  masters’  heads  ? 

Drimakos  had  his  plan.  It  was  a  plan  as  fine  in  its  de¬ 
tails  as  it  was  strange  in  its  conception.  He  set  up  an  ab¬ 
solute  monarchy  in  the  lofty  jungles  of  his  mountain  crag. 
He  emancipated  all  slaves  after  their  having  passed  ex¬ 
amination  as  of  a  civil  service.  When  once  a  runaway  had 
passed  this  rigorous  test  he  made  him  or  her  a  member  of 
his  Blessed  government  upon  an  equality  as  severe  as  it 
was  democratic.  He  forced  the  rich  citizens  of  the  green 
valleys  below,  to  support  him  and  his  chosen  angels  of  this 
aerial  paradise ;  and  for  long  decades  of  time  had  but  to 
go  down  with  his  bands  of  warriors,  armed  to  the  teeth, 
and  get  from  the  barns,  cellars  and  orchards  the  richest 
of  nature’s  gifts.  And  the  plan  worked  charmingly  even 
to  his  tottering  old  age. 

A  very  clearly  designed  plan  was  that  of  Aristonicus  of 
Pergamus,  whose  anti-slavery  rebellion  followed  that  of 
Eunus.  He  promised  the  working  people  who  were  in 
great  fear  of  being  sold  into  slavery — a  thing  which  ac¬ 
tually  came  to  pass  after  their  defeat — that  if  they  would 
take  up  arms  with  him,  they  should  have  a  kingdom  of 
the  “Blessed;’’  that  they  should  be  made  equal  with  all 
men,  and  become  citizens  of  the  sun,  heliopolitai ,  which 
in  their  minds,  since  they  worshiped  the  sun  as  their  re¬ 
ligion,  -was  to  be  inhabitants  of  a  heaven  on  earth,  a  dem¬ 
ocracy  yearned  for  even  to  our  day.  With  remarkable 
faith  and  energy  they  took  up  arms,  fighting  for  their 
earthly  paradise  and  when  defeated,  suffered  like  mar¬ 
tyrs,  many  of  them  upon  the  cross. 

Spartacus,  the  last  of  the  ancient  ’abor  revolters,  whose 


PLAN  OF  JESUS,  THAT  OF  BROTHERHOOD.  551 


enormous  defeat  went  far  toward  convincing  future  phi¬ 
losophers  and  agitators  that  a  halt  must  be  called  to  the 
destructive  havoc  of  reform,  had  a  clearly  traced  plan. 
He  wished  to  set  the  bondsmen  free.  For  himself  and 
his  Thracians  and  Gauls  he  wanted  freedom  to  return  to 
his  native  hills,  thinking,  in  his  seemingly  innocent  sim¬ 
plicity,  that  this  was  the  highest  liberty — the  enjoyment 
of  his  boyhood’s  home. 

The  mightiness  of  this  man  is  seen  in  the  two  great 
facts:  First,  that  his  life  was,  as  it  were,  a  prodigious 
blast  of  unparalleled  military  power  against  the  wrongs 
which  despots,  backed  by  military  machinery,  inflicted 
upon  labor  ;  and  secondly,  that  through  this  awful  and 
exterminatory  blast,  and  by  dint  of  its  mightiness,  the 
wondering,  inquisitive  and  learning  world  was  taught 
that  the  horrors  of  military  despotism  cannot  be  cured, 
but  must  ever  be  aggravated,  by  the  application  of  mili¬ 
tary  means.  Through  Spartacus,  mankind  awakened  to 
realize  that  other  means  than  that  of  “an  eye  for  an  eye 
and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth”  must  be  tried  before  the  lowly 
millions  of  toil  could* be  lifted  to  the  dignity  and  equality 
of  their  calling. 

Let  these  remarks  suffice  then,  to  introduce  one  who 
came  next  in  the  order  of  the  prophets  and  messiahs ;  but 
this  time  with  a  statesmanship  whose  plan  did  not  prove 
a  failure.  And  what  was  this  plan  ? 

Jesus,  a  tradesman,  messiah  and  prophet,  coming  just 
one  hundred  years  after  Spartacus,  was  obliged  to  labor 
and  struggle  during  the  greater  part  of  his  lifetime,  to 
support  himself,  father,  mother,  brothers  and  sisters.  Min¬ 
isters  of  his  Gospel,  who  preach  it  from  any  other  stand¬ 
point,  do  so  only  because  they  have  been  imposed  upon 
by  the  ruling  of  prelates  who,  since  Constantine’s  politi¬ 
cal  amalgamation  with  Neo-Platonism  which  upheld  both 
chattel  and  wage-slavery  and  was  no  ingredient  of  the 
original  precept,  forsook  the  master  and  backslid  into 
paganism. 

He  did  not  deny  his  lowly  condition. 68  Right  at  the 
close  of  the  Augustan  or  Golden  Age,  after  the  communes 

••N.T,  Mark,  vi.,  8 :  "Is  not  this  the  carpenter,  the  son  of  Mary,  and  are  not 
his  sisters  here  with  us  ?  ”  Aping  the  aristocracy  of  paganism  which  this  work¬ 
ingman  dethroned,  the  subsequent  priesthood  has  vainly  endeavored  to  trace  his 

genealogy  back  to  Abraham. 


MS 


PLANS  ANJD  MODELS . 


and  trade  unions,  with  Clodius  at  their  head  in  Rome,  had 
stormed  lawyer  Cicero  out  of  his  life,  while  that  great 
tempest  of  agitations  was  yet  surging  on,  shaping  those 
memorable  utterances  of  great  jurists  like  Ulpian,  to  the 
effect  that  all  men  are  born  equal;69  at  that  epoch-making 
period,  himself  born  to  the  stigma  of  labor,  Jesus  was  able 
to  plant  seed  which  has  reared  a  system  so  democratical 
that  it  has  already  virtually  overcome  the  terrible  slave 
By  stem  and  with  it  the  contempt  of  labor;  and  his  whole 
plan,  though  extremely  revolutionary,  is  rapidly  prevail¬ 
ing  as  people  become  wise  in  their  understanding. 

In  the  incipiency  of  his  “state”  of  a  perfect  society  which 
Tertullian  calls  a  coetus  (meaning  a  union),70  Jesus  con¬ 
siders  working  people  regardless  of  trade  or  calling,  to 
be  the  best  element  from  which  to  choose  his  advisers. 
Among  them  were  four  fishermen,71  one  custom  house 
clerk,73  designated  in  Smith’s  Dictionary  of  the  Bible  as 
one  of  the  publicans,  who  were  at  that  time  hated  by  the 
poor  people  as  the  meanest  of  men.  The  other  seven  were 
of  various  trades  or  professional  callings.  There  is  ap¬ 
parently  no  claim  extant  that  any  one  of  the  twelve  apos¬ 
tles  whose  names  have  become  more  renowned  in  the 
world  than  any  others  in  the  annals  of  our  common  race 
with  the  exception  of  the  Master  himself,  of  Paul,  and  a 
few  others,  were  anything  but  poor  workmen — a  valuable 
assurance  to  any  at  the  present  day  who  languish  in  doubt 
lest  the  venture  of  their  powers  upon  the  labor  movement 
may  result  in  no  glory  to  themselves  and  their  names. 

The  organization  of  the  early  Christians,  as  we  have  con¬ 
stantly  shown,  was  based  purely  upon  the  principle  always 
advocated  by  all  labor  organizations,  yearned  for  by  the 

69  Ulpian,  Digest ,  L.,  xvii.,  32:  “Quod  attinet  ad  jus  civile,  servi  pro 
uullis  haberentur,  non  tamen  et  jure  naturali :  quia  quod  ad  Jus  naturale  attinet, 
omnes  homines  sequales  sunt."  Thus  Ulpian  who,  some  160  years  alter  Christ’s 
labors  closed,  convinced  of  the  justice  of  the  already  great  liberating  movement 
of  the  early  Christian  all  around  him,  wrote  these  words,  terrible  to  the  Roman 
optimates.  Justinian  afterwards  embodied  them  in  his  Pandects.  Who  shall 
say  that  Ulpian’s  brutal  assassination  by  a  mob  of  soldiers  was  not  his  punish¬ 
ment  for  righteous  judgment?  Again,  Florentinus,  not  long  after  the  time  of 
Gaius,  wrote :  “  Servitus  est  constitutio  juris  gentium  qua  quis  dominio  alieno 
contra  naturam  subicitur.  ”  Digest,  I.,  v.,  4 ;  Bockh,  Laurische  Silberberg- 
%oerke,  S.  123,  declares  that  the  Christians  of  these  parts  extinguished  the 
■lave  system  entirely. 

m  Tertullian,  Apology,  XXXIX.,  1 :  “Coimus  in  coetum  et  congregationem 
at  ad  deum  quasi  manu  facta,  precationibus  ambiamus.” 

7i  Matthew,  iv.,  18,  21;  Mark,  i.,  19,  20. 

n  MaWiew:  lx.  9;  MarJfc,  ii.,  14. 


RESEMBLANCE  OF  SOCRATES  AND  JESUS.  553 


myriad  slaves,  and  emphatically  demanded  by  Christ,  its 
founder  and  his  followers,  to  the  effect  that  all  men  are 
created  equal,  whatever  the  social  inequality  unjustly  im¬ 
posed  upon  some  by  licensed  managers  of  the  products  of 
their  toil.78  The  original  fathers  struck  out  openly  for 
all  that  promised  equality  and  democratical  ends. 

Jesus  forbids,  in  his  ideal  state,  and  even  the  approaches 
to  it,  that  men  should  engage  in  war  or  conflict  of  any  kind. 
“Whosoever  smite  thee  on  thy  right  cheek  turn  to  him  the 
other  also.74  He  certainly  modeled  his  plan  from  the  or¬ 
ganizations,  the  brotherhoods  which  discarded  hatreds, 
and  with  them  the  competitive  system  entirely.  Instead 
of  hatred  one  for  another,  it  was  love  one  for  another.74 
Socrates  who  says,  “We  are  all  thiasotes  of  this  god,” 76 
comes  nearest  to  Christianity  of  all  the  more  ancient  ad¬ 
vocates  of  reform ;  and  this  of  course  accounts  for  their 
killing  him.  Plato  went  through  unscathed,  and  like  him 
Aristotle.  But  both  believed  in  slavery  and  were  of  gens 
blood ;  while  Socrates  was  a  born  workingman.  So  like¬ 
wise  Jesus  was  killed  for  loving  labor  and  laborers  and 
denouncing  hatreds  together  with  the  system  on  which 
they  are  based.  He  ruled  that  these  working  people 
were  fully  equal  to  any  other  class — a  most  pronounced 
advancement  of  matters  in  the  ethics  of  the  social,  econ¬ 
omic  and  political  world. 77 

Socrates,  if  we  believerhis  own  words,  was  a  member  of 
an  eranos,  or  a  thiasos;  for  Xenophen  quotes  him  as 
saying  so,  inasmuch  as  he  declares  to  his  friends  and  dis¬ 
ciples  gathered  about  him,  that  “under  this  god  we  are  all 
thiasotes.”  He  was  not  an  Essene.  His  last  words,  as  he 
lay  dying,  reminded  his  disciples  that  they  (the  thiasotai, 
or  brethren),  owed  their  cook  for  a  chicken  on  which  they 

78  Justin  Martyr,  Dialogue,  xxxvi.  4;  Varro,  De  Re  Rustica,  Proem. 

74 Matthew,  v.,  39.  ibidem,  v.,  44. 

7«  Xenophon,  Convivii,  viii.,  2,  speaking  of  Eros,  the  god  of  love,  says 
that  at  the  symposium,  in  all  probability  of  a  thiasos  club,  he  made  the  following 
speech  :  “’A p‘,  e/f/jj,  w  arSpeg,  eiiebs  rj/nag  irapovro g  baipovog  /oteyaAov  /cai  rai  pe v 
Xpov<i>  icnjAi/cos  Tots  aeiyevecri  deolg,  t9)  fie  p,op<£jf  vea/TaTOi/,  /cal  p.eye'dei  per  narra 
€7re'vot'TOS,  if/ vyf  fie  av&pwirov  iSpvp.4vov,  *Eporoj,  /xij  ap.vrjp.ovT}crat,  aAAws  re  /cat 
ejreifirj  navreg  ecrper  tov  &eov  tovtov  dta<rwTai  ....."  Among  the  disciples  of 
Socrates  was  Xenophon  himself.  The  subject  of  discussion  was  Love,  and  the 
duty  of  men  to  love  one  another,  just  as  Jesus,  at  similar  symposiums,  used  to 
teach  the  great  philosophy  of  love  nearly  500  years  afterwards. 

77  First  Oorinihiant,  iv.,  7.  The  church  got  an  early  foothold  in  Corinth. 
This  great  city  was  overrun  with  slaves.  Of  080,000  inhabitants,  640,000  were 
slaves.  Yet  Paul,  speaking  against  the  distinctions  which  “puff”  men  up,  one 
above  another,  asks  them  :  “Who  maketh  thee  to  differ  from  another?” 


554 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


had  banqueted,  and  entreated  them  not  to  forget  to  pay 
it.  These  communes  drank  wine,  sacrificed  lambs,  had  for¬ 
tune-tellers,  messiahs,  prophets,  married  and  brought  up 
children,  and  within  their  sacred  pale  had  “all  things 
common.”  This  is  what  the  early  Christians  organized 
their  first  communities  upon;  and  it  certainly  seems,  con¬ 
sidering  their  lowliness  and  the  fact  that  they  were  mostly 
workingmen  and  women,  that  Christianity  was  the  organ¬ 
ization  invented  to  “PROCLAIM’  the  cult  which  the  secret 
commune  so  long  and  so  inveterately  had  in  secret  prac¬ 
tised.  In  a  word,  the  revolution  of  Jesus  rose  from  a  deep 
meaning,  thoroughly  digested,  long  tried  and  powerful 
culture,  already  inculcating,  already  impregnating  the  opin¬ 
ion  .  and  bias  of  that  great  working  majority,  the  down¬ 
trodden  lowly  of  mankind. 

The  idea — ignored  by  Plato,  “the  father  of  idealism,” 
and  hinted  at  in  Aristotle’s  strange  prediction78 — of  a  so¬ 
ciety  without  slaves  where  all  are  equal,  was  original  in 
the  secret  labor  communes  ;  but  so  far  as  its  open  propa¬ 
gation  was  concerned,  it  was  original  with  Jesus,  totally 
and  definitively.  That  idea  could  not  mix  with  the  old  pa¬ 
ganism.  79  Otherwise  the  ancient  culture,  philosophy  and 
great-mindedness,  had  many  magnificent  virtues,  which 
prevail  to-day  and  which  farther  on,  we  shall  show  to 
nave  belonged  not  to  paganism  but  to  labor.  The  repu¬ 
diation  of  paganism  by  the  culture  of  J esus,  took  on,  in 
the  ignorant,  bigoted  world,  an  enormous  excrescence  of 
supernumerary  whims  arising  from  infantile  speculations 
of  men,  which  were  condensed  through  edicts,  by  the 
councils  of  different  ages,  into  tyrannical  faith-cures,  in¬ 
quisitions  and  superstitious  “standard  philosophies,”  and 
theological  regulations  which  arbitrarily,  building  on  suoh 
edicts,  destroyed  for  a  thousand  years,  the  culture  of  in¬ 
quiry  founded  by  men  like  Aristotle  and  Socrates.  But 
this  very  spirit  of  inquiry  belongs  to  the  plan  of  Jesus.89 

They  could  not  see  the  way  clear  to  mix.  The  age  w« 
live  in  is  that  of  mixture  of  the  two  great  and  immortal 

78  Aristotle,  in  (Economics,  predicted,  foreshadowed  that  there  might  arrive 
a  atate  of  development  in  which  there  would  be  no  slaves.  Cf.  id.,  Pol.,  I.,  4. 

79  Draper,  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe,  I.,  chap,  xlll.,  Ea  stage  of  At 
Age  of  Reason ,  has  shown,  by  a  cutting  array  of  facts,  that  the  inquieitiv*,  «f 
Investigating  spirit  and  its  culture  of  the  Greek  Progressists  sohool  would  b*f* 
been  extirpated  altogether,  hut  for  Mohammed  and  the  Arabians  and  SpaAtfa 
Moora. 

to  Thestaloniatu,  21  :  “  Prove  all  things  and  hold  feet  that  whieh  is  ml** 


THE  MOHAMMEDAN  RESCUE. 


555 


plans..  It  is  the  culture  of  inquisitive  reason  on  the  basic 
of  equality  of  all  mankind.  This  equality  paganism  did 
not  allow. 

The  revolution  accomplished  by  the  efforts  of  the  pool 
through  their  long  succession  of  revolts,  their  messiahs, 
secret  organizations,  and  at  last  their  early  Christianity, 
though  it  was  perverted  by  Constantine  and  a  long  suc¬ 
cession  of  prelates  in  the  false  garb  of  faith  and  priest¬ 
craft  during  the  dark  ages,  never  for  a  moment  relin¬ 
quished  its  hold  on  its  real  revolutionary  idea.  That 
idea  was  the  equality  of  man,  the  teaching  by  the  poor, 
of  the  poor;  the  building-up  of  a  vast  civilization  with¬ 
out  slaves,  with  one  God,  one  father  for  all  and  salvation 
of  all,  economically. 

When  Christians  concentrated  priest-power  into  despot¬ 
ism  there  arose  another  vast  and  similar  order — the  Mo¬ 
hammedan — which  resumed  the  same  idea  and  in  Spain 
went  on  for  centuries  with  the  plan  based  upon  equality, 
carrying  it  out  as  well  as  could  be  done  at  that  low  age. 
This  Mohammedanism  appears  to  have  saved  mankind 
from  sinking  forever. 

It  took  a  thousand  years  for  the  world  to  learn  and  prop¬ 
erly  apply  the  new  system.  The  relapses  and  swoons  of 
the  early  centuries,  when  men  were  guided  by  ambitious 
demagogues,  were,  if  we  learn  to  reason  upon  them  aright, 
most  natural  things.  The  world  had,  throughout  all  the 
previous  ages,  been  cultivating  a  civilization  based  upon 
the  system  of  masters  and  slaves.  It  was  a  civilization 
competitive  in  all  respects.  It  had  never  known  a  moment 
of  socialistic  life.  If  its  lowly  millions  had  built  up  and 
tried  a  socialism,  it  was  in  the  dense  penumbra  of  secrecy. 
Whenever  their  socialism  reached  the  light  it  had  always 
been  put  down  by  the  monster  power  of  slavery  and  its 
military  legions,  as  a  loathsome  and  filthy  thing;  for  it  rec¬ 
ognized  equality. 

Foolish  then  and  short-sighted  are  the  men  who  won¬ 
der  at  the  vast  tumble-down  ages  of  demolition  that  super¬ 
vened  over  the  immortal  revolution  of  J esus  and  the  work¬ 
ing  people,  who,  prying  their  socialistic  civilization  up 
through  this  despotism,  at  a  choice  moment  when  aristoc¬ 
racy  was  rotting  by  its  own  loathsome  gangrene,  sent  their 
orators  out,  and  with  superhuman  struggles  urged  it  forth 
upon  the  broad  plane  of  day  where,  for  once  and  for  all. 


656 


PLANS  AND  MODELS . 


the  resplcn&ant  stm  of  uumasked«utelligence  shone  upon 
it  with  beams  so  bright  that,  although  since  beclouded, 
it  now  rolls  onward  to  a  final  day. 

The  new  ages  had  to  be  built,  but  in  their  building 
their  architects  fell,  times  without  number  and  nearly  two 
thousand  years  rolled  over  the  world  before  all  things 
became  adjusted  to  this  civilization  they  have  erected 
upon  those  great  precepts  which  contain  and  set  forth  the 
economic  equality  of  mankind. 

This  emergence  of  the  culture  of  the  great  commune 
system  of  the  ancient  lowly  out  of  the  secret,  into  the  open, 
out  of  the  irascible,  destructive,  the  bloody  and  warlike, 
into  the  peaceful  world,  which  took  place  at  Palestine 
after  the  great  and  last  disaster  under  Spartacus,  gave  to 
humanity  a  set  of  immortal  principles  to  accomplish  their 
economic  salvation.  So  inconceivably  great  was  the 
change  or  revolution  embodied  in  these  principles  that 
our  race  in  applying  them,  sank  into  a  swoon  and  well- 
nigh  lost  them  forever.  But  after  a  struggle  of  nearly 
1,900  years  the  World  is  at  last  re-emerging  from  its 
thrall  and  is  now  in  the  very  act  of  applying  them  as  a 
permanent  principle  to  its  political  economy. 

One  of  the  greatest  and  fiercest  struggles  the  Christians 
ever  had  was  motived  by  the  working  people’s  demand 
for  bread.  The  new  sect,  being  largely  of  the  labor  ele¬ 
ment,  its  monks  naturally  were  in  their  sympathy  and  al¬ 
lowed  vast  numbers  of  images,  palladiums,  amulets,  tal¬ 
ismans  and  incantations  to  be  manufactured  for  the  uses 
of  every  conceivable  phase  of  priestcraft.  There  came, 
during  the  middle  ages  a  protest  against  it,  and  for  120 
years  the  war  of  the  iconoclasts  raged  against  the  working 
people  who  in  turn  were  savagely  upheld  by  the  monks. 
Thus,  as  ever  before,  the  aristocracy  were  against  labor, 
rightly,  perhaps,  for  in  course  of  ages,  industry  has,  in  the 
finer  civilizations,  given  up  its  hold  on  image-making ;  but 
the  truth  is,  the  laboring  classes  would  not  accept  Chris¬ 
tianity  at  the  cost  of  their  means  of  life.  That  this  does 
not  apply  to  the  early  Christians  is  explained  by  the  fact 
that  they  were  co-operators  who  “had  all  things  common.” 

“In  the  present  world  only  evil  reigns.  Satan  is  the  king 
of  the  earth,  or  prince  of  this  world.  All  obey  him.”  " 

41  Consult  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe,  vol.  II.,  for  a  full  discussion. 

*2  Renan,  Vie  de  Jesus,  p.  116 ;  N.  T.  John,  xli.,  31,  xir.,  30,  xvi.,  11; 
Second  Corinthians,  iv.,  4. 


A  X  Cl  EXT  AGITATION  BY  ALLEGORY.  657 


Now  working  people,  even  those  engaged  in  the  great  ad¬ 
vocacy  of  labor,  and  the  absolute  equality  of  the  rights  of 
man,  may  possibly  be  misled  by  their  honest  belief  that 
J  esus,  in  talking  as  he  did  meant  only  the  world  to  come. 
He  meant  the  present,  just  as  he  said:  “The  kings  kill 
the  prophets:”63  “The  just  are  persecuted: *f  “Thy  will 
be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.”  84 

But  whoever  thoroughly  understands  the  ancients,  well 
knows  that  among  all  the  numerous  turmoils  of  slaves,  of 
gladiators,  of  agrarianism,  of  trade  unionists,  there  have 
been  prophets.  The  kings,  according  to  this  speech  of 
Christ,  killed  them.  We  have  sufficiently  shown  that  the 
kings  and  rulers  were  not  satisfied  with  their  ordinary 
death  ;  they  hung  them  and  their  followers  upon  the 
ignominious  cross. 85  “The  world  as  it  is,  is  the  enemy  of 
God.” 86  The  great  master,  speaking  in  his  exquisitely 
perfect  style  of  allegory,  always  represented  God  as  the 
principle  of  goodness — nature. 

Jesus  preached  openly  a  plan  or  system  of  absolute  jus¬ 
tice  ;  and  he,  in  establishing  a  foothold  for  it,  also  per¬ 
ished  on  the  cross.  The  kings  killed  the  prophets.  They 
had  just  killed  his  friend  and  forerunner,  the  vigorous 
agitator  and  member  of  the  order  of  free  masons,  John 
the  Baptist,  because  his  pure  character  and  love  of  virtue 
forbade  him  from  permitting  unattacked,  the  voluptu¬ 
ousness  and  fornication  going  on  in  palaces  and  assigna¬ 
tion  houses  of  Herod  and 87  intimates,  over  whom  reigned 
the  beautiful  but  silly  Herodias  by  whose  machinations 
Antipas  had  become  the  cunning  ingrate  whom  Jesus  de¬ 
nominated  the“  fox.”88  John  and  Jesus  owe  their  death 
to  this  bloodthirsty  female  libertine.  Very  few  know  or 
even  seek  to  know  the  real,  human,  home- vie  wed  causes 
of  these  renowned  events ;  they  being  mixed  up  in  the 
mysticism  of  supernatural  predilection  and  bigotry.  When 
this  labor  movement  comes  to  be  regarded  as  a  sort  of 
“second  coming,”  which  it  really  is,  we  shall  behold  the 
amazing  analogy  of  that  mighty  agitation  of  A.  D.  31-33, 
in  juxtaposition  with  ours  of  1886-’  96,  our  eyes  opened, 

•3  Renan,  Id.,  pp.  116,  117  84  MaUXrm,  vi.,  10. 

85  See  supra,  the  chapters  on  Strikes  and  Uprisings. 

90  Renan,  Vie  de  Jisus,  p.  117. 

87  Renan,  idem,  p.  Ill:  “  L’ union  presq'  incestueuse  d’ Antipas  etd’Hi- 
rodiale  s’accomplit  alors.”  Leviticus ,  viii..  16  ;  Josephus,  Wars  of  the  Jews, 
VII.,  6.  7  and  elsewhere :  Antiquities ,  XVII.,  13. 

•*  See  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  Article  Antipas. 


658 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


our  hearts  gladdened  in  an  inexpressably  glorious  normal 
growth  of  18  centuries  which  have  shorn  it  of  mysticism 
and  theosophy. 

Prophets  and  healers  were  everywhere.  The  wife  of 
Spartacus  was  both.  She  foretold  that  the  deeds  of  this 
gladiator  should  be  great,  by  divining  the  causes  of  the 
serpent  being  found  coiled  around  her  husband’s  neck  and 
face  during  his  sleep.  She  was  a  sorceress ;  and  her  pre¬ 
monitory  words  all  turned  out  too  true  to  the  cruel  capi¬ 
talists,  for  whose  work  of  enslaving  the  people  Spartacus 
punished  them  with  some  of  the  most  disastrous  mili¬ 
tary  defeats  and  humiliating  slaughters  to  be  found  in  the 
annals  of  war.89 

The  Essenes  had  their  prophets,  some  of  whom  turned 
off  such  excellent  examples  of  foretelling  that  they  be¬ 
came  known  far  and  near.90  All  antiquity  was  full  of 
prophets ;  and  they  had  the  advantage  of  us  modern  mor¬ 
tals,  in  that  they  met  an  openly  expressed  belief  in  prog¬ 
nostication;  whereas  the  people  of  modern  times  are  on 
the  alert  for  what  they  incredulously  and  correctly  char¬ 
acterize  as  humbugs.  When  the  true  social  history  of  the 
past  shall  have  been  written,  and  all  its  available  phases 
presented  from  a  point  of  view  of  the  anti-slavery  or  anti¬ 
competitive  movement,  we  shall  come  to  a  common  sense 
understanding  of  this  whole  mesh,  linked  together,  event 
with  event. 

Paganism  by  its  law  of  entailment  upon  primogeniture 
logically  made  every  child,  except  the  first-born,  or  “ an¬ 
ointed, v  a  menial,  a  chattel,  a  slave,01 

Jesus  with  a  majestic  swoop,  hurled  this  cruelty  from 
his  state  and  turning  to  all  the  innocents,  with  an  ineffa¬ 
ble  sweetness,  uttered  the  irresistible  command:  “  Suffer 
little  children  to  come  unto  me  for  of  such  is  the  kingdom 
of  heaven 92  and  though  Plato  hove  the  consideration  of 
the  working  class  from  him  with  a  contempt  that  denied 
them  even  citizenship,  the  eloquence  of  Jesus  rang  out: 
“The  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire.”98 

Messiahships  and  prophetic  lore,  all  through  the  sup- 

•*  Consult  supra,  chapter  ix. 

so  Smith’s  Oyclopcedia  of  Biblical  Literature,  Article,  Essenes ;  Bellermaun, 
Nadirichten  aus  dem  AUerthum. 

1,1  See  supra,  chapter  on  Eleusinian  Mysteries,  touching  the  cryptia,  and 
secret  wholesale  murder  of  the  laboring  element. 

^  N-  T.  Mark,  x.,  14.  Matthew,  n,  10;  Luke,  n*  T. 


LONDON'S  SOCIALISM  FROM  SAME  OLD  PLAN7  odU 


erstitious  ages  have  been  strategical  strongholds  of  econ¬ 
omic  philosophy.  They  have  entered  with  immaculate 
conceptions,  prophetic  powers,  voodooisms  and  fetichs. 
They  have  entered  into  all  the  efforts  of  the  poor,  strug¬ 
gling  for  economic  emancipation.  But  they  have  acted  a 
potent  part  in  building  and  deeply  rooting  a  philosophy 
whose  slow  and  steady  culture  is  terminating  in  the  rea¬ 
sonable  belief  that  such  monstrous  things  are  worthless 
and  that  the  purified  economic  philosophy  needs  no  mas¬ 
ters,  leaders  or  messiahs. 

A  thousand  years  after  Lycurgus,  Jesus  denied  that  the 
estate  of  birth  and  family,  as  understood  by  the  Pagans, 
was  of  any  account  whatever.  He  laid  the  axe  at  the  root 
of  this  most  egregious  evil ;  and  his  doctrines  have  been 
quietly  destroying  it  ever  since. 

From  B.  C.  55,  the  date  of  Julius  Caesar’s  invasion  of 
the  British  shores,  the  Homan  organizations  began.  It 
is  well  known  that  the  Romans  mixed  freely  with  the  peo¬ 
ple  whom  they  found  living  on  these  islands.  Settling  in 
Kent,  Middlesex  and  other  places,  they  taught  the  Brit¬ 
ons  as  we  have  elsewhere  explained,  the  mechanic  arts. 
They  also  taught  them  the  principle  of  combination 
against  oppression  which  existed  there  in  all  its  rigors. 
They  planted  the  burial  societies  which  to  this  day  have 
never  died  out ;  communes,  which  smothered  for  thous¬ 
ands  of  years,  still  exist ;  trade  unions,  which,  though 
often  stifled  into  guilds  and  perhaps,  in  appearance,  sup¬ 
pressed,  smouldered  through  long  generations  until  finally 
allowed  to  resume.  Their  burial  associations  were  in 
Kent,  Middlesex  and  London,  the  same  as  they  were  at 
Rome— -practically  more  trade  union  than  burial  society. 

We  behold  with  astonishment,  unable  to  comprehend 
because  ignorant  of  the  powers  of  transmission  through 
habit,  the  tendency  of  the  working  people  of  London,  to 
grasp  the  social  problem.  Yet  here  is  the  explanation. 
Their  omnipresent  burial  societies  are  at  heart  both  trade 
unions  and  socialist  communes,  just  as  were  those  of  their 
ancestors.  And  now  London  crops  out,  the  very  leader 
of  the  great  labor  movement  of  the  world.  It  has  been 
so  all  along.  A  glance  at  the  history  of  the  social  turmoils 
of  Jack  Cade,  of  Wickliff,  will  show  that  London  and  its 
vicinity  have  ever  been  as  it  were,  the  nucleus  of  a  great 


560 


PLANS  AND  MODELS . 


Anglo-Saxon  cult  of  fraternity  borrowed  from  the  Greet 
and  Roman  Brotherhoods. 

Our  inference  from  evidence  given  in  preceding  chap¬ 
ters,  that  land  was  not  primevally  held  as  common  prop¬ 
erty  will  be  challenged.  The  opposite  opinion  is  the  prp- 
ular  one.  But  we  have  all  through,  insisted  that  we  <  o 
not  claim  to  prove  it  only  in  connection  with  the  Indc- 
European  stock,  whatever  may  be  hereafter  ascertained 
as  to  others,  the  historic  evidence  shows  more  and  more 
conclusively  as  we  investigate,  that  the  original  settler  was 
the  paterfamilias,  the  low  bully  who  took  the  land,  and 
built  about  him  like  a  sovereign,  using  his  family  as  his 
slaves.  The  Aryan,  we  insist,  was  not  a  nomad.  Nomads 
were  the  first  runaway  sons  and  daughters  wrho,  unable 
to  endure  the  treatment  they  were  subjected  to,  organ¬ 
ized,  revolted,  took  to  the  woods  and  built  up  sympathies 
and  self-help  coalitions  which  finally  developed  into  the 
numerous  social  unions  we  have  described,  and  gave  ori¬ 
gin  to  the  nomadic  life  of  the  patriarchal  system.  In 
other  words,  the  earliest  of  our  forefathers  were  the  mon¬ 
archical  stock,  and  the  democratic  stock  followed.  So  we 
find  also,  true  to  the  principle  of  development,  that  the 
older,  or  monarchical  stock  is  gradually  dying  out  while 
the  democratic  stock  is  growing  little  by  little,  century 
by  century,  all  over  the  world  alike.  The  first  are  the 
aristocracy  the  latter  the  working  people. 

We  have  stated  before  that  there  exists  a  similarity 
between  Socrates  and  Jesus.  The  more  this  fact  is  stud¬ 
ied  the  more  beautiful  the  paralellisms  appear.  Both 
were  workingmen  by  birth.  Both  preached  the  labor 
question.  Both  were  guided  throughout  their  lives  by  a 
daemon;  that  is,  by  some  invisible  power  for  good;  for 
the  Greek  daemon  was  God.  Both  were  betrayed  by 
their  own  disciples.  Both  were  orators  of  the  most  super¬ 
nal  eloquence,  powers  of  magnetism  and  genius,  the  one 
with  simile  the  other,  allegory.  Neither  wrote,  but  both 
like  the  true  workingman,  were  indefatigable  in  deeds 
and  left  their  followers  to  do  their  writing.  Both  were 
prophets  and  messiahs  and  both  died  martyrs  to  their 
cause.  To  carry  the  similitude  farther,  both  were  sur¬ 
rounded  to  their  dying  hour,  by  friends  who  in  after  life, 
rose  from  their  masters’  seemingly  inspired  teachings,  to 


TWO  MEN  AND  TWENTY-FIVE  CENTURIES.  661 


the  very  pinnacle  of  fame — a  fame  which,  in  both  cases, 
based  clearly  on  the  economic  question,  has  been  greater, 
more  lasting  and  far  more  glorious  than  that  of  any  other 
men. 

But  Socrates  in  less  than  600  years,  could  only  block 
out,  and  crudely  present  what  Jesus,  in  2,000  years, 
brings  to  perfection.  From  the  great  sayings  of  the  rea¬ 
soning  Soorates  arose  the  axiom  of  Aristotle,  to  be  up  and 
be  doing,  for  nothing  would  come  of  itself,  and  Jesus  in 
similar  manner  taught  Paul  to  prove  all  things ;  hold  fast 
that  which  is  good  —  the  basis  since  laid  down  by  Des¬ 
cartes  and  Bacon,  and  spontaneously  adopted  as  the 
ground-principle  upon  which  our  mechanico-progressive 
enlightenment  thrives.  No  nation,  no  people  that  will 
not  accept  and  pattern  from  it  can  proceed.  They  must 
languish  like  the  Mongolian,  in  conservatism. 

Let  us  first  compare  the  prayers  of  these  two  masters 
with  those  of  others.  The  prayer  of  Socrates  ran  as  fol¬ 
lows  : 

“O  beloved  God  of  nature,  Guardian  of  many  a  clime ! 
Let  me  become  beautiful  within;  for  whatever  I  have 
outward,  I  should  be  at  peace  within.  Let  me  be  wise 
enough  to  consider  him  rich  who  hath  wisdom.  May  I 
be  endowed  with  but  enough  of  riches  as  no  one  except 
a  prudent  man  can  use  and  bear  without  pride.”*4 

There  was  a  dignified  and  honest  humiliation  about 
Socrates.  He  must  have  been  a  most  heroic  character. 
A  poor  workingman,  bom  to  a  trade,  and  never  owning 
more  than  a  third  class  house  to  live  in,  he  was  able — 
though  he  went  barefoot  through  the  streets  of  Athens 
and  some  say,  almost  ragged  and  filthy — to  attract  and 
captivate,  and  actually  convert  into  thinkers  and  philoso¬ 
phers,  some  of  the  wealthiest  young  aristocrats  of  that 
high-toned  city.  He  constantly  declared  that  he  was 
guided  by  some  unknown  spirit.  Jesus  was  also  thus 
guided.  Socrates  was  certain  of  nothing  until  he  had 
reasoned  the  objection  away  and  always  thought  that  he 
himself  knew  little  or  nothing.  The  same  unassuming 
sweetness  and  self-distrust  is  what  makes  the  character  oi 
Jesus  so  lovelv  and  captivating  that  all  the  ascerbity  of 
his  critics  melts  with  the  progress  of  their  arguments 


M  Plato,  Pfuxdrxa,  Jtru 


562 


PLANS  AMD  MODELS. 


The  last  scenes  of  Socrates  as  described  by  Plato  in  hia 
Crito  and  his  Phsedo,  are,  for  their  wonderfully  affecting 
simplicity,  and  their  astonishing  disclosure  of  the  power 
of  human  resignation  and  of  spirit  over  the  flesh,  unpar- 
alelled  by  anything  that  exists  in  story,  unless  we  except 
the  story  of  Jesus,  his  last  supper  and  exquisite  fortitude 
in  the  hour  and  agony  of  death. 

The  most  celebrated  and  oft-repeated  prayer  of  Jesus 
is  that  regarding  his  mission  in  favor  of  the  poor — the 
Lord’s  prayer — in  which,  being  one  of  them,  he  uses  the 
second  person:  “Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread.”96  It 
was  a  great  problem  among  the  poor  of  his  time,  how  to 
get  enough  to  eat.  But  for  an  example  of  his  power  to 
subjugate  the  hateful  spirit  of  intimidation  and  vengeance, 
of  conceit  and  shallow  egoism  which  debased  his  age, 
nothing  can  equal  the  great  prayer  as  he  hung,  dying  in 
awful  agony,  upon  the  cross.  This  torture  had  been  the 
invention  of  fiends  of  the  prehistoric  ages ;  by  creatures 
who  imagined  that  pain  was  the  crystalized  term  embody¬ 
ing  both  vengeance  and  threat.  They  so  framed  both 
their  law  and  their  gibbet,  foreknelling  to  the  subjects,  by 
cramming  the  imagination  with  the  horror  of  pain.  Yet 
even  in  this  incomparable  agony,  with  the  spirit  at  the 
verge  of  departure,  and  the  body  writhing  in  qualms  such 
as  none  can  suffer  so  poignantly  as  a  young  man  of  his 
physical  courage  and  vigor  in  the  sensitive  prime  of  life’s 
hopes  and  joys,  we  see  this  person  capable  of  casting  up 
his  eyes  to  heaven  and  meekly,  touchingly,  begging  the 
Pan  of  Socrates;  the  Isis  of  the  therapeut;  the  Palla9 
Athene  of  Phidias,  the  Cybele  of  the  thiasote,  the  Ceres 
of  Eunus,  the  God  of  Abraham  and  universal  Father,  to 
forgive  them — the  cruel  mob — for  they  knew  not  what 
they  did.96 

Now  let  us  look  at  some  other  celebrated  prayers,  study 
their  exact  meaning  and  ask  ourselves  how  these  two  un¬ 
selfish  and  self-sacrificing  prayers  of  Socrates  and  of 
Jesus,  differed  in  point  of  view  of  the  plan  of  salvation  for 
the  poor  and  laboring  lowly. 

One  of  the  oldest  that  we  have  is  that  of  Alcestis, 
the  faithful  wife  of  Admetus,  who  was  about  to  die  that 
her  husband  might  live.  She  invoked  the  altar  of  her 

M  Matthew,  vi.,  11.  ••  N.  T.,  Luke ,  xxiii.,  54. 


#r 


SPECIMENS  OF  SELF]  SUN  EPS  IN  PRA  TER.  5G3 


family,  the  tomb  of  her  fathers,  the  fire- eternal  of  her 
hearth  :  “0  holy  divinity,  mistress  of  my  gens  and  pater¬ 
nity  !  This  is  the  last  time  that  I  bow  myself  before  thee, 
and  address  thee  my  prayers ;  for  I  am  about  to  descend 
into  the  regions  of  the  dead.  Watch  I  pray  thee,  over 
my  children,  who  are  to  know  no  more  a  mother.  Give 
to  my  son  a  tender  wife,  and  to  my  daughter  a  noble  hus¬ 
band.  Permit  that  they  may  not  die,  like  myself  before 
their  time,  but  let  them,  in  the  bosom  of  happiness  and 
riches,  find  a  protracted  existence.”91 

All  is  selfishness.  The  family,  the  individual,  the  ego¬ 
ist,  the  concentrated  wealth  of  slave  labor,  a' one  to  be 
blessed,  but  not  a  word  for  the  suffering  world  outside. 

So  again,  another  ancient  aristocrat,  approaching  the 
tomb  of  a  rich  man  believed  to  be  happy  in  the  abodes 
below,  prays:  “O  thou  who  art  an  aristocrat  under  the 
sod.” 98  Another  prayer  of  a  selfish  son,  concerned  only  in 
the  welfare  of  his  family  and  the  wealth  he  has  inherited, 
in  the  language  of  Euripides  likewise  invoking  his  dead 
father  now  a  god  in  the  beatitude  of  an  underground 
paradise,  reads  :  “O  thou,  who  art  a  god  under  the 
ground,  preserve  me.” 

But  Juvenal,  the  great  satirist,  a  freedman  s  son  ana  a 
low-born,  had  the  kindness  of  Socrates.  In  one  of  his 
satires  Juvenal  prays.  His  praj^es  is  for  the  poor  slave, 
in  bondage;  and  good  old  Juvenal  died  in  exile,  on  the 
scorching  plains  of  an  African  desert. 

Xenophon  who  wrote  the  (Economics,  a  treatise  on  the 
habits  of  life,  makes  Isomachus  say  to  Socrates  :  “I  open 
the  day,  each  morning,  by  saying  my  prayers,  like  a  gen¬ 
tleman  well  brought  up.”99  The  philosophers  among  the 
Greeks  always  said  their  prayers,  and  even  at  the  sympo¬ 
siums  of  the  thiasotes  and  other  communes,  prayers  and 
paeans  were  regularly  offered. 100  But  all  the  prayers  of 
the  ancient  rich,  were  for  the  rich  and  noble.  iEchylus 
makes  Orestes  pray  to  the  great  God  of  the  Greek  the- 
ogony  of  his  age,  as  follows:  “O  Zeus!  If  thou  lettest 
the  race  of  the  eagle  perish,  who  shall  hereafter  bear  the 


564 


auguries  to  mortal  men  ?” 101  Nobody  but  the  aristocrat, 
allied  by  blood  to  the  God  himself,  could  carry  the  mes¬ 
sages  from  the  high  to  the  low,  of  mankind ;  and  by  this 
culture  the  aristocracy  was  maintained  while  the  outcasts, 
the  low-born  who  labored,  were  kept  down,  even  by  the 
prayers  and  entreaties  of  those  in  power. 

An  instance  of  the  kind  of  prayer  that  was  expected  by 
a  gathering  of  ancients  before  the  beginning  of  our  era, 
is  told  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  at  a  convention  of  guests 
called  to  examine  the  Septuagint  at  Alexandria,  about 
B.  0.  265.  An  old  Pagan  priest  wras  called  on  to  offer  an 
extemporaneous  prayer,  and  he  made  it  with  such  show, 
and  rhetorical  eloquence  that  it  caused  a  tumultuous  out¬ 
burst  of  applause.102  How  different  from  the  command 
we  have  from  the  workingman.103 

Far  better  than  this  have  the  simple  aborigines  of  Amer¬ 
ica  done.  The  prayer  of  the  Quiche  race  in  their  wander¬ 
ings  to  find  a  fixed  habitation  was:  “Hail!  O  Creator,  O 
Former!  thou  that  art  in  heaven  and  on  the  earth,  O 
Heart  of  Heaven,  O  Heart  of  Earth !  give  us  descendants 
and  a  posterity  as  long  as  the  light  endures.  Give  us  to 
walk  always  in  an  open  road,  in  a  path  without  snares; 
to  lead  happy,  quiet,  peaceable  lives,  free  of  reproach.” 104 
The  Aztec  prayers  preserved  from  the  mouldering  anti¬ 
quities  of  Mexico,  touch  the  heart  as  if  they  might  be 
labor  supplications;  and  they  make  us  think  of  the  wan¬ 
dering  family  outcasts  of  the  ancient  Aryan  race.106 

Socrates  and  Jesus  pray  with  a  similar  humiliation,  foi 
improvement,  liberty  and  modest  emancipation  from  want 
while  the  others  prayed  for  a  continuation  of  the  powers 
and  riches  already  in  their  possession ;  and  the  farther 
we  investigate  these  two  characters  the  finer  and  more 
beautiful  appears  the  paralellism  between  them,  while 
their  natures  diverge  more  and  more  widely  from  the 
great  class  outside  the  social  pale,  buffeting,  and  vaunt¬ 
ing  in  the  competitive  billows  of  pride  and  arrogance. 

Not  a  few  men  of  distinction  of  our  age  are  awakening 
to  a  sense  of  the  great  modern  truth,  that  it  is  noble  to 

uji  zEschilus,  Choephori,  248-249;  De  Casyaguac  Histoire  dts  Classes  Noble* 

U  Ues  Classes  Annoblies,  p  569. 

Draper,  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe ,  Vol.  I.,  p.  89. 

Matthew,  vi  ,  5,  6,  7. 

Bancroft,  Native  Races ,  vol.  III.,  p.  49. 

106  Encyclopedia  Britannica,  vol.  XVII.,  p.  220  (Stoddart). 


PR  0  VE  HIM  OF  LABOR,  AND  JE  WS  CAN  A  CCEPT.  505 


acknowledge.  When  nations,  or  families,  or  individuals 
discover  that  they  have  been  hugging  an  error,  it  is  not 
disgraceful,  it  is  noble,  even  grand,  to  come  boldly  out 
and  acknowledge  it.106 

W e  premise  this  statement  as  a  prologue  to  wThat  we 
would  say  of  the  Jew's  who  still  despise,  almost  ignore  the 
modern  era.  There  is  a  solemn  history  in  their  case  tiiat 
ought  to  furnish  a  full  excuse  for  this.  But  viewed  from 
our  standpoint  of  true  sociology  which  treats  man  in  his 
normal  relation  to  the  economic  means  of  existence,  there 
is  no  longer  an  excuse  for  schism,  dissention  and  misun¬ 
derstanding  as  to  the  acceptance  by  Jew  or  Gentile,  of 
the  present  civilization,  so  far  as  it  has  been  able  to  jostle 
into  the  plans  of  salvation  laid  dowrn  by  Moses,  Socrates, 
Aristotle  and  Jesus.  When  correctly  understood  by  the 
Hebrew  working  man,  he  himself  will  acknowledge  that 
no  grounds  for  quarrel  exists  with  these  legislators — not 
even  with  the  plan  of  J esus.  That  he  lived,  is  true  beyond 
cavil  ;107  and  the  Jew7  does  not  deny  it ;  he  only  denies 
that  he  Was  the  great  aristocrat  whom  his  own  proud  race 
expected.  Here  lies  the  trouble.  Let  it  be  remembered 
that  those  ancient  Jews  of  whom  we  read,  were  at  this 
time  very  proud  people  and  that  they  had  no  sympathy 
whatever  writh  persons  who  would  stoop  to  an  agitation 
in  the  cause  of  the  slaves,  or  the  working  classes.  This 
phase  of  the  life  and  labors  of  Jesus,  they  were  themselves 
the  very  first  to  condemn  and  reject.  It  was  they  who 
were  maddened  at  his  w7ork,  and  they  who  betrayed  and 
killed  him.  Had  he  come  as  a  great  prince,  robed  in 

ice  Hewitt,  Speech  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  on  the  Em  an  cipat  ion 
of  Labor  :  “I  have  no  apologies  to  make  for  having  progressed  out  o:  the  night  of 
darkness  into  the  open  sunshine  of  truth.  Exit  I  should  have  apologies  to  make 
if,  having  reached  conclusions  which  contradict  those  that  I  held  years  ago,  I 
should  fail  in  this  House  and  everywhere  to  announce  them  with  that  frankness 
which  bel  ongs  to  an  honest  man  and  a  faithful  representative.”  As  the  new  era 
advances,  we  see  more  and  more  frequent  exhibits  of  lofty  acknowledgment  like 
the  specimen  here  quoted. 

107  The  profane  evidences  that  such  a  person  actually  lived  aremanyand  mul¬ 
tiform;  Consult  Josephus,  Antiquities,  cap.  xviii.  As  regards  the  authenticity 
of  Josephus,  we  refer  the  reader  to  Tacitus,  Annalcs,  Xv. ,  44;  Origen,  Com- 
mentatio  in  Matth. ;  Eusebius,  Evangeliorum  Demonstratio,  III. ;  Idem,  .Eccles¬ 
iastic  us,  I.,  cap.  xi. ;  Hieronymus,  De  Vij-is  lllustribus,  In  Josepho ;  Sozoraen, 
Hisloria  Ecclesiastica,  I.,  1 ;  Justin  Martyr,  Dial,  cum  Tryphone :  Georgius  Syrv- 
cellus.  Chronica ;  Scaligcr,  Prolegomena,  De  Emendatione  Temporum  and  many 
others.  A  curious  book,  purporting  to  be  a  copy  of  an  ancient  MS.  of  the  Se<  i  et 
Order  of  Essenes,  now  iu  the  possession  of  Mr.  G.  L.  Wriid,  the  piano  merchant 
of  Washington,  D.  C.,  and  which  we  have  carefully  perused,  bears  the  follow- 
ing  suggestive  title:  “ Wie  ist  Jesus  wirklich  gestorben? — Beantwortet.’  Ila.ti- 
xnore,  1850. 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


506 

gorgeous  and  shining  attire,  with  lofty  tread  and  lordly 
mein,  and  had  he  preached  the^  philosophy  of  property, 
the  sanctity  of  priesthood  and  the  vengeance  of  Jehovah, 
tilings  to-day  would  have  been  different.  The  J  ews  would 
have  acknowledged  him. 

But  his  work  launched  incomparably  above  that  level, 
in  that,  while  it  in  no  sense,  attacked  the  Pagan  science 
or  any  of  its  powerful  steps  in  development,  it  resulted 
completely  in  breaking  up  the  hideous  system  of  slavery. 
It  built  up  what  had  ever  before  been  a  stranger  even 
among  the  Jews,  the  free  family;  legalizing  that  institution 
on  a  completely  democratic  basis,  such  as  makes  every  one, 
no  matter  how  poor,  a  noble.  In  this  it  has  excelled  every¬ 
thing  hitherto  known  among  either  Pagans  or  Hebrews; 
for  Moses  provided  the  ghastly  institution  of  slavery. 

This  aged  stamp  of  slavery  removed,  nothing  remains 
to  hinder  Hebrew  working  people  from  rising  in  science 
and  the  scientific  adjustment  or  application  of  the  inven¬ 
tions,  manufactures  and  all  other  products  of  their  hands 
and  working  harmoniously  with  all  others  of  the  indus¬ 
trial  class. 

The  Jews  are  easily  convinced  of  any  truth  when  it  is 
reasonably  explained;  for  they  are  logically  and  scienti¬ 
fically  disposed.  It  is  well  known  that  while  they  were 
living  peacefully  in  Spain,  during  the  Middle  ages,  under 
the  then  excellent  Mohammedan  rule  which  cultivated  the 
sciences  and  arts,  great  numbers  of  Jews  embraced  the 
Mohammedan  faith.  Among  others  was  the  great  Mai- 
monides.108 

But  Jerusalem  at  that  time  being  a  grand,  beautiful 
and  proud  city,  ruled  over  by  an  aristocratic  stock  who 
numbered  many  priests  among  them,  the  Hebrew's  natu¬ 
rally  wanted  and  expected  a  man  of  noble  extraction,  as 
their  Messiah. 

Another  point  must  here  connectedly  be  borne  in  mind — 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  Early  Christians  are  known 
lo  have  ioohed  unconcerned  upon  this  awful  scene  under 
Titus,  A.  A).  70.  This  again  maddened  the  Hebrews ;  for 
they  found  themseivos  if  possible,  worse  persecuted  than 
the  new  brotherhood 

Josephus  gives  the  number  of  Jtwrs,  men,  women  and 


‘“•S*®  InUlUclu&i  Vco<«rpiMul  oj  JCuropt,  il.,  pp.  122-11  .. 


GOOD  CAUSE  FOR  THE  HEBREW  DISBELIEF.  567 


children  destroyed,  at  1.100,000,  and  Tacitus  gives  it  at 
600,  000.  Considering  the  almost  unparalelled  massacres 
to  which  they  were  subjected,  after  the  new  brotherhood 
began  to  take  root,  and  that  they  naturally  thought  these 
brotherhoods  were  the  real  cause  of  it,  we  cannot  wonder 
that  they  consider  them  and  their  organizer  and  cham¬ 
pion  as  at  the  bottom  of  many  of  their  disasters. 

It  is  only  when  they  begin  to  look  upon  this  Jesus  from 
the  point  of  view  of  social  science,  that  the  brilliant  He¬ 
brew  race  can  ever  see  and  persuade  themselves  to  admit 
that  there  was  no  imposture  ;  for  the  labor  movement  is 
at  this  moment  without  a  tincture  of  class  hatred  or  of  na¬ 
tional  prejudice.  It  is  slowly  working  for  the  improve¬ 
ment  of  all  mankind ;  and  any  one  plan  that  succeeds  must 
logically  be  the  one  accepted  by  both  Jew  and  Gentile. 

The  knowledge  of  these  facts  leads  to  the  review  of  an¬ 
cient  plans,  in  a  light  that  contrasts  them  with  the  mod¬ 
ern.  In  extreme  brevity  it  is  as  follows : 

The  planjof  Lycurgus  was  this  of  our  modern  socialists 
who  desire  that  society  or  government  possess,  operate, 
distribute  with  mathematical  accuracy,  the  product  of 
labor.  The  state  of  Lycurgus  did  as  much  for  a  period 
of  500  years. 

The  plan  of  the  moderns  is,  that  the  state  shall  own  all 
land  and  all  implements  of  labor.  But  the  Spartans  did 
exactly  this,  under  a  test  of  1,500  generations.  What, 
then,  is  this  political  economy  that  has  not  been  tried? 

The  answrer  to  this  gives  a  mirror  in  which  is  reflected 
the  vast  progress  under  the  new  era.  It  is  simply  that  the 
tools  of  labor  were  originally  the  slaves;  the  human,  animate, 
quickened  things ,  that  thought,  resented,  rebelled,  fought 
organized,  wrote  their  record  upon  the  slabs  and  finally 
brought  out  their  great  culture  and  master;  these  were  the 
tools  of  the  ancient  Pagan  state  !  And  in  Sparta,  in  Crete 
and  in  Plato’s  Republic,  they  had  them  in  common. 

The  laborer  then,  as  the  subjugated  tool  of  the  ancients 
did  right,  we  claim,  no  matter  how  destructive  his  methods 
or  bow  disastrous  for  the  moment,  their  outcome;  he 
did  right  under  the  circumstances,  terrible  and  irrepressi¬ 
ble  in  his  slavery-cursed  ages;  he  did  right  to  rebel  and 
teach  those  cruel  optimates  who  owned  and  whipped  and 
strangled  him,  the  first  stern  lessons  in  democracy. 


568 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


Men  and  women  then,  were  the  tools,  the  implements 
of  labor  owned  in  common  by  the  state  ;  and  they  were 
worked  and  whipped  for  the  “blessed”  of  “God’s  chosen 
people.”  The  change  from  the  human  tools  to  the  labor- 
saving  tools  ;  from  the  servile  state  to  the  democratic; 
from  the  groans  of  ignorance  to  the  joys  of  equality  in  en¬ 
lightenment,  is  the  revolution  in  which  the  advocates  of 
modern  labor  reform  desire  to  have  “all  things  common,” 
as  Jesus  arranged  through  his  followers.  It  was  the  eco¬ 
nomic  part  to  be  accomplished,  which  he  presaged  and 
ordered  for  adoption  on  the  vast  scale,  at  his  “second 
coming” — the  Labor  Movement  of  to-day. 

We  have  now  arrived  at  our  closing  remarks  on  these 
implements  of  labor.  We  have  already  shown  that  the 
economic  problem  of  the  ancients  was  never  Pagan.  It 
was  then,  just  what  it  is  now — Christian,  or  that  which 
afterwards  became  Christian.  Paganism  never  could 
endure  any  mechanical  progress.  It  was  conservative. 
When  mechanical  genius  of  the  industrial  earth-borns 
wrought  at  Athens,  and  in  Asia  Minor  and  the  islands  of 
the  Archipelago,  wonderful  works,  they  were  aggressive 
against  paganism  and  its  sullen  culture. 

What  was  the  mechanical  progress  of  the  ancient  low- 
borns,  then,  despite  the  contempt  of  a  system  based  on 
slavery  that  has  always,  even  to  this  day,  made  them  as 
slaves  and  poor  wage-earners,  the  tools  of  an  aristocracy  ? 

We  reply,  basing  each  word  carefully  upon  history,  that 
it  was  labor — labor  degraded,  but  labor.  Nothing  else. 
No  nation  ever  made  an  iota  of  progress  without  it.  The 
bully  in  a  spirit  of  brigandage  could  seize  the  product  of 
labor  and  use  it ;  but  not  without  first  forcing  a  laborer 
to  perform  the  task. 

But  a  curious  fact  is  here  opened  to  view.  Not  only  is 
labor  the  origin  of  all  things  among  mankind  which  make 
life  and  enlightenment,  but  it  is  the  poor  little  infinitesi¬ 
mal  creature,  the  laborer,  that  makes  language.  No  power 
can  withstand  or  overcome  that  of  the  proletarian  iuroads. 
A  desperate  effort  was  once  made  in  England  to  intro¬ 
duce  and  perpetuate  the  Latin  tongue.  High -priests  and 
prelates,  university  doctors,  kings  robed  in  majesty,  and 
governmental  powers,  were  almost  unanimous  in  the  up¬ 
per  atmosphere  of  rule,  in  pressing  the  subjection  of  the 


ANCIENT  INVENTIONS. 


669 


Longue  of  the  proletarian  million.  For  centuries  their  powes 
imperfectly  succeeded.  But  a  Chaucer,  and  a  Shakespeare 
rose  from  the  ranks  to  the  rescue  and  backed  by  the  rough 
and  heedless  populace,  teeming  in  the  by-ways  already  the 
proud  old  classic  is  dead.  It  is  this  little,  insignificant  mite, 
so  long  in  the  swaddlings  and  sackcloth  of  contempt,  who 
adds  almost  every  new  word,  as  he  adds  every  new  thing, 
by  the  unrecognized  toil  of  his  invention,  contrivance,  dis¬ 
covery,  in  industry;  and  the  multitude  of  mechanical  as 
well  as  literary  plagiarisms,  ancient  and  modern,  practiced  at 
his  expense  to  aggrandize  others,  will  be  the  subject  of  some 
future  treasure-hunter,  for  an  invaluable  book. 

The  ancient  world  before  the  Roman  conquests,  was  not 
onlv  full  of  inhabitants,  but  full  of  inventions.  They  had 
a  reaper  among  the  Cauls,  the  operations  of  which  are  trace¬ 
able  for  hundreds  of  years.  It  was  a  real  reaping  machine 
or  harvester.  Pliny  tells  us  that  it  was  pushed  by  an  ox 
harnessed  in  thills  behind  it  and  that  it  had  some  sort  of 
reel  which  threw  the  heads  of  the  grain  over  so  that  some¬ 
how  they  were  severed — or  as  he  erroneously  states,  torn, 
— from  the  stalks.109  The  reaper  mentioned  by  Pliny  is 
again  found  much  more  perfectly  described  by  Palladius, 
400  years  afterwards.  It  is  perfectly  obvious  to  any  me¬ 
chanic  or  farmer  who  has  tried  a  reaping  machine  that  no 
grain,  however  ripe  or  brittle,  will  admit  for  a  moment,  of 
having  its  ears  “torn  off”  and  dropped  into  a  trough.  On 
the  contrary,  the  greatest  precaution  in  the  construction  of 
cutters  that  sever  the  heads  from  the  stalks  must  be  ob¬ 
served.  Here  was  the  secret  of  the  recent  inventions. 

109  Pliny,  Nat.  Hist..  IS,  30,  describing  the  messor.  or  harvester,  speaks  as  fol¬ 
lows  :  “  Messis  ipsi us  ratio  varia.  Galliarum  latifundiis  valli  prsegrandes  den- 
tibus  in  margine  mfestis,  dnabns  rotis  persegetem  impelluntar,  jumento  in  con- 
trarinm  junclo  ;  ita  direptse  in  vallnrn  caduut  spicse.  Stlpulae  alibi  mediae  falce 
precidunt,  atque  inter  dims  mergites  spica  distringitur.”  This  same  machine  i® 
more  fully  described  by  Palladius,  in  his  De  Re  Rustica.  for  June,  lib.  VII.,  cap. 
ii.,  as  follows:  “Pars  Galliarum  planior  hoc  coinpendio  utitur  ad  metendum, 
et  praeter  hominum  labores,  unius  bovis  opera  spatium  totius  messis  absumit. 
Fit  itaque  vehiculum  quod  duabus  rotis  brevlbus  tertur.  Hujus  quadrata  super¬ 
ficies  tabulis  munitur,  quae  forinsecus  reclines  in  summo  reddant  spatio  largi- 
ora.  Ab  ejus  fronte  carpenti  brevior  est  altitudo  tabularum.  Ibi  denticuli  plu- 
rimi  ac  rari  adspicarum  mensuram  constituuntur  in  ordinem,  ad  superiorem  par¬ 
tem  recurvi.  A  tergo  vero  ejusdem  vehiculi  duo  brevissimi  temones  figurantur, 
velut  amites  basternarum.  Ibi  bos  capite  in  vehiculum  verso  jugo  aptatur  et  vin- 
culis  mansuetus  sine,  qui  non  modum  compulsoris  excedat.  Hie  ubi  vehicu¬ 
lum  per  messes  coopit  Irapellere  omnis  spica  in  carpentem  denticulis  compre- 
hensacumulatur,  abrupt  is  acrelictis  paleis;  altitudinem  vel  humilitatem  plerum- 
que  bubuculo  moderante,  qui  seiuitur.  Kt  ita  per  paucos  itus  ac  reditus  brevi 
hornrum  spatio  tota  invssis  mipletur.  Hoc  campestribus  locis  vel  eequalibu® 
utile  est,  et  iis,  quibus  uoceesana  paics  non  habetur,” 


570 


PLANS  AND  MODELS. 


Pliny  was  a  superficial  observer  and  knew  little  about  me¬ 
chanical  niceties.  But  he  could  correct  I  v  inform  us  that 
this  labor-saving  machine  worked  so  well  that  it  was  uni¬ 
versally  employed  by  the  farmers  of  the  great  valleys  of 
what  is  now  France;  and  the  fact  that  it  worked,  shows 
that  the  ancients  used  the  reciprocating  shears.  No  doubt 
this  machine  had  been  in  use  hundreds  of  years  before  Pliny 
saw  it.  Palladius  tells  us  that  it  economized  labor  so  greatly 
that  one  man  with  a  strong,  gentle  ox  could  reap  an  entire 
canton  in  a  day. 

Thus,  while  Caesar,  a  military  noble  of  aristocratic  stock 
was  attacking  the  defenseless  people  of  Gaul,  and  killing 
his  million110 — the  harvest  of  his  brutal  invasions — the  work¬ 
ing  people  were  quietly  inventing  the  invaluable  implements 
of  labor,  which  afterwards  were  to  be  exchanged  for  the 
animate  tools  of  labor  in  form  of  slaves  and  w  age-bondmen 
of  the  ancient  oligarchy. 

So  long  as  the  enslavement  of  man  remained  at  so  low  a 
level  that  man  himself  was  the  tool  or  implement  of  labor, 
there  appears  to  be  no  fierce  exhibits  of  the  competitive  sys¬ 
tem,  such  as  prevails  to-day.  When  slaves,  as  tools  of  labor, 
were  emancipated,  the  true  competitive  business  era  ap¬ 
peared,  and  nourished  by  its  corollary,  the  wage-slave  sys¬ 
tem,  will  continue,  until  the  inanimate  tools  or  implements 
of  labor — the  inventions  or  labor-saving  machines,  have  be¬ 
come  nationalized  just  as  the  animate  tools,  the  human  ma¬ 
chines  were  nationalized,  in  the  plans  of  Lycurgus  and 
Plato.  This  difference  between  the  kind  of  tools  to  be  na¬ 
tionalized,  from  those  of  Lycurgus  to  those  which  make  our 
wonderful  civilization,  is  in  reality,  exactly  what  working¬ 
men  of  to-day  are  organizing  and  struggling  to  create. 
Labor  wants  Lycurgus’  nationalization  of  the  implements 
of  production  and  distribution  on  a  basis  in  which  all  may 
enjoy  their  product  equally. 

But  reasoning  from  the  point  of  view  of  social  science,  it 
is  worth  while  to  recur  to  the  actual  mechanical  advance¬ 
ment  attained  to,  in  spite  of  the  hatred  borne  by  the  ancient 
cult,  for  any  kind  of  laboring  machines  except  the  slave. 

no  Something  on  the  destruction  of  the  Gauls  may  be  found  in  Caesar,  Ds 
Hello  Gallico,  VI.,  cap.  24.  Wallace,  Numbers  of  Mankind,  p.  70-75,  shows  that 
thore  were  09,000,000  people  in  Gaul.  Caesar  killed  1,000,000,  and  took  as  many 
more  prisoners,  many  of  whom  were  consigned  to  slavery.  See  Plutarch,  I’om- 
pry,  showing  that  he  siezed  a  thousand  cities  ;  Id.,  Casar, 


BRITONS  BORROW  THE  ROMAN  CULT.  571 


Long  before  Christ  the  Alatri  had  nsed  the  inverted  siphon111 
and  Pliny  informs  us  of  enormous  hydraulic  mining  plants. 111 
Wallace  has  collected  a  great  number  of  references  to  au¬ 
thors  showing  the  height  of  perfection  to  which  art  had  ar¬ 
rived  before  the  opening  of  the  present  era.118  Fine  porce¬ 
lain  was  manufactured  in  high  antiquity.114  The  building 
art  outstripped  all  others,  even  those  of  destruction  in  the 
military  line.  The  cause  of  this,  is  that  more  solemnity  and 
reverence  existed  among  the  Pagan  temples  than  in  any  other 
realm,  and  consequently  more  time,  energy,  genius  and  money 
were  expended  in  this  sphere,  than  elsewhere;  consequently 
the  building  trade  and  the  manufacture  of  images  excelled 
all  other  industries  for  exquisite  workman  ship.114 

Long  before  the  Roman  invasion  of  Britain,  there  existed 
considerable  art  among  the  mechanics;  but  it  is  well  estab¬ 
lished  that  the  friendly  Roman  Brotherhoods  brought  and 
taught  the  art  of  lathe-work  in  pottery  into  a  town  which 
h;.s  since  become  the  great  London.114 

The  whole  subject  sums  up  in  the  grave  conclusion  that 
the  plants  and  the  plans  of  the  ancient  brotherhoods  how¬ 
ever  ancient — even  thousands  of  years  before  the  coming  of 
the  last  Messiah — were  really  the  plant  and  plan  which,  un¬ 
der  the  Christian  civilization,  the  modern  world  is  following. 

Pure  paganism  was  that  of  the  idea  of  an  aristocratic  re¬ 
ligion  whose  priesthood  was  a  part  of  the  state  government. 
It  denied  the  equality  of  men.  It  strenuously  upheld  and 
stubbornly  contended  for  the  divinity  of  rights — a  divinity 
that  was  based  upon  the  august  power  of  the  paternal  des¬ 
pot,  and  still  adheres  in  form  of  the  aged  law  of  inheritance 
and  the  rule  of  entailments  upon  primogeniture,  or  a  species 
of  godhead  for  the  first-born  son,  and  in  the  inheritance  of 
living  monarchs.  Pure  paganism  exalted  this  first-born, 
who  was  believed  to  have  relationship  by  blood  and  family, 
with  the  immortals.  It  was  a  despotism  of  masters  over 
slaves,  which  despised  the  laborers,  originally  its  own  chil¬ 
dren,  while  it  feasted  upon  their  works. 

111  Bowie,  Hydraulic  Mining,  pp.  158-9. 

112  Pliny,  Natural  History,  XXXIII.,  cap.  4. 

118  Wallace,  Numbers  of  Mankind,  p.  141 ;  Guhl  and  Koner,  Life  of  the  Greeks 
and  Romans,  p.  490,  sqq. 

114  Pliny,  Natural  History ,  XXXVI.,  cap.  26. 

116  A  fine  specimen  of  building  art  was  the  temple  of  Jerusalem  ;  Campbell, 
Political  Survey ,  I.,  p.  23.  note  ;  Diodorus  Siculus,  Bibliotheca  Historian ,  XVI. } 
Dionysius,  Periegesis,  v.  109 ;  Pliny,  Natural  History,  VII.,  W. 

118  Hughes,  Horae  Britannica. 


572 


FLANS  AND  MODELS. 


The  laborers  and  the  products  of  labor  were  therefore  nec-w 
Pagan.  The  beautiful  chiselings  of  Phidias  belonged,  not 
to  the  ancient,  but  to  the  modern  civilization;  for  pure  pa¬ 
ganism  despised  these  makers.  They  were  before  their  age. 

All  the  great  industrial  triumphs  therefore,  were,  by  an¬ 
ticipation,  though  unrealized,  germane  to  the  modern  era.  As 
they  were  a  source  of  contention,  and  were  innovations 
against  paganism  in  ancient  days,  so  they  are  crystals  of  the 
pure,  in  philosophy  and  political  economy  of  modern  days  ; 
since  by  the  dissolution  of  the  old  order  of  things  the  eco¬ 
nomic  problem  slowly  triumphs  over  the  old  warring  cult  of 
the  competitive  system,  and  is  already  showing  signs  of  a  tend¬ 
ency  to  reconsider,  and  upon  a  vast  scale,  re-adopt  the  ancient 
germ — long  suppressed — of  having  “all  things  in  common.” 

Judging  from  the  evidence,  we  could  almost  infer  that  the 
modern  labor  movement  is  not  only  a  genuine  revival  of  the 
ancient  one,  but  the  surprising  appearance  presents  itself 
that  with  all  its  vastly  greater  advantages,  on  account  of 
mechanical  developments  and  the  filling  of  the  world  with 
inventions  and  implements  of  progress  which  the  ancients 
lacked,  yet  it  has  not  become  much  purer  in  the  true  method 
of  realizing  needful  equality  than  the  Italian  trade  unions  had 
grown  to,  before  the  Christian  era;  for  we  find  their  organ¬ 
izations  in  the  use  of  the  ballot  shown  on  the  inscriptions  at 
Pompeii,117  and  many  other  such  evidences,  that  they  actu¬ 
ally  used  their  ballot;  whereas  modern  trade  unions  still 
refuse  this  mighty  instrument  of  power.  The  remarkable 
fact  is  seen  uppermost,  that  the  ancients  have  discussed 
every  sort  of  socialism  now  being  forced  to  the  front  by  the 
returning  labor  associations,  such  as  lay  at  the  bottom,  in¬ 
spiring  these  world-renowned  plans.  Everyone  of  the  great 
schemes,  from  that  of  the  Cretans,  borrowed  by  Lycurgus, 
to  those  of  Numa,  Solon,  then  Socrates — spoiled  by  aristo¬ 
cratic  Plato — then  Aristotle  and  the  others,  down  to,  and 
including  Jesus,  was  a  plant  of  socialism.  Every  one  that 
treated  or  even  tried  to  treat  working  people  as  equal  with 
the  rest  of  mankind,  like  the  plans  of  Numa,  Solon,  after¬ 
wards  of  Jesus,  proved  successful;  and  we  challenge  the 
critical  world  to  prove  it  otherwise.  But  every  one,  like 
those  of  Crete,  borrowed  by  Lycurgus,  and  those  of  Plato, 
Aristotle,  -Agis,  the  Roman  gens  and  all  succeeding  ones 

See  supra,  p.  390-391,  quoting  the  Pompeian  Inscription. 


CONCLUSION. 


673 


that  have  been  based  upon  the  competitive,  or  slave,  and 
wage-slave  systems,  failed. 

MORAL. 

Let  all  men  take  warning  from  the  past,  that  the  plans  of 
those  great  aristocrats  based  on  the  social  idea,  failed  because 
they  left  the  laborer  out;  denied  him  liberty,  soul  and  an  enu¬ 
meration  in  the  census,  as  a  man.  He  rebelled;  and  in  his 
crude  numeric  might,  broke  them  up  and  killed  them.  Ho 
destroyed  their  governments  at  last,  and  is  building  a  new  era 
upon  their  ruins.  Let  then,  the  world  accept  this  new  era, 
expunge  every  lingering  heathenism,  recognize  and  acknowl¬ 
edge  that  equality  means  justice  meted  out  to  all — not  a  “di¬ 
vine”  few  who  use  the  outcast  as  a  mere  implement  of  labor; 
himself,  his  toils,  his  products  nationalized,  only  for  their  mi¬ 
nority.  Let  now,  this  rallying  hero’s  inventions  be  national¬ 
ized  instead;  his  products  nationalized;  his  body  freed.  Then 
all — not  a  presumptuous  few — become  divine,  and  all  enjoy 
the  plentitude  which  the  ancient  plan  of  nationalization  is  well 
known  to  have  brought  forth. 

What  shall  the  gilded  pulpit  say  when  arraigned  for  derelic¬ 
tion,  in  Pagan-like,  forgetting  the  millions  whose  toil  still  sup¬ 
plies  its  luxuries  ? 

Many  years  since,  the  earliest  step  of  the  writer  of  these 
pages — on  determining  to  devote  his  life  to  the  advocacy  of 
labor’s  rights — was  to  visit  the  monarchs  of  the  pulpit,  in  his 
simple,  mistaken  supposition  that  the  Church  was  Christian; 
with  ready  welcome,  ready-made  halls;  with  ready-made  ora¬ 
tors,  precepts,  directions  and  a  ready-made  system  of  practical 
benevolence — in  fine,  the  natural  place  to  appeal  fora  solution 
of  the  problem. 

Like  one  in  mentis  gratissimo  errore ,  he  eagerly  presented 
himself  before  the  learned  doctors,  pleading  that  theirs  was  the 
task  to  study  such  turmoils  and  uneasiness  as  exhibit  themselves 
awry.  To  his  surprise  his  cause  was  spurned.  He  was  driven 
from  the  temples  to  lower  zones;  to  truer  Christianity;  places  of 
human  sympathy;  into  dingy  beer  halls — and  it  was  here,  not  in 
the  churches,  that  open  hearts,  and  hands  of  welcome  gave  re¬ 
ception  and  incipiency  to  a  great  movement.  The  “low”  beer 
hall  still  proves  a  welcome,  mellow  garden  for  the  first  sow¬ 
ings;  and  if  the  fruits  of  the  harvests  be  crude  and  bitter,  let 
the  Pagan  temple  that  spurns  its  mission,  accuse  itself. 


\ 


1 


APPENDIX. 


A  TRANSLATION 

OF  THE 


CHAPTER  I. 

Page  38,  _  Note  1 :  “  So  long  as  there  exists  among  the  rich 

and  the  poor  an  intermediate  class  of  considerable  propor¬ 
tions,  the  moral  influence  which  that  class  exercises  will  be 
sufficient  to  prevent  any  collision.” 

CHAPTER  II. 

Page  49,  Note  4:  “It  is  thus  we  may  now  announce  that 
we  have  discovered  the  first  slaves  that  existed — they  were 
the  children.”  The  Iliad  says:  “I  had  fifty  sons  born  to 
me  of  the  Achseans — nineteen  through  wedlock,  and  the 
rest  were  brought  into  the  world  for  me  by  the  women  of 
Megara.  ” 

Page  49,  Note  5:  “  The  best  (ancient)  state  excluded  work¬ 

ing  people  from  the  right  ol  citizenship;  and  whenever  they 
succeeded  in  obtaining  it,  they  still  remained  a  class,  under 
contempt  and  devoid  of  influence.” 

Page  53,  Note  16:  “  He  lives  on  pods  and  second-rate  bread.’ 

Page  53,  Note  20:  “They  used  to  believe  that  the  remains 

of  the  dead  were  still  alive  o,nd  doing  active  duty.  ” 

CHAPTER  III. 

Page  70,  Note  12:  “The  original  belief  among  the  genera¬ 
tions  of  antiquity  was,  that  human  beings  still  lived  in  the 
tomb ;  that  the  soul  did  not  separate  from  the  body,  and  that 
it  remained  fixed  to  that  part  of  the  ground  in  which  the  re¬ 
mains  were  buried.” 


576 


APPENDIX . 


Rage  75,  Note  19?  “'The  dead  person,’  says  the  law  of 
the  Twelve  Tables,  ‘  shall  be  neither  buried  nor  burned 
within  the  city  of  Rome.’  How  could  that  be  ?  The  fact  is, 
all  who  now  are  buried  within  the  city  are  of  noble  stock.  ” 
Page  75,  Note  23,  Dr.  Fustel  says :  *  ‘  These  beliefs  are  cer¬ 
tainly  not  borrowed  either  by  the  Greeks  from  the  Hindoos 
nor  by  the  Hindoos  from  the  Greeks;  but  they  belong  to 
both  races,  far  apart  and  are  derived  from  Central  Asia.” 
Page  76,  Note  25:  1  ‘  The  lawgiver  of  the  Romans  ”  (mean¬ 

ing  Romulus)  1  ‘  is  reputed  to  have  given  great  power  to  the 
father  to  exercise  over  his  son ;  and  for  all  causes  whatsoever 
he  could  kill  him.  He  even  possessed  the  choice  of  murder¬ 
ing  him  himself.”  The  Code  of  Justinian  has  it,  that  “the 
right  of  life  and  death  was  once  permitted  to  fathers  over 
their  children.  ” 

Page  79,  Note  32:  “  I  declare  myself  much  better  than  the 

earth-born  multitude — mere  porridge-eating  mortals.  ” 

Page  79,  Note  33  :  “  This  distemper  did  not  trouble  the  well- 
to-do  among  our  forefathers.  ” 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Page  92,  Note  18 :  “  They  played  the  rape  of  Proserpine  in 

a  sort  of  hieratic  or  religious  drama.  They  went  through  the 
veritable  rencounter  of  the  nuptials.  ” 

P8,ge  98,  Note  27  ,  Ltiders  says  :  “One  thing  indicating  the 
character  of  the  unions,  especially  of  later  date  is,  that  slaves 
too,  could  not  only  take  part  in  an  eranos  but  were  even  per¬ 
mitted  to  share  in  a  religious  mutual  aid  fund.  As  proof  of 
the  fact  that  the  eranos  was  thus  used  there  have  been  found 
in  the  vicinity  of  Delphos,  very  many  specimens.  There 
was  a  union  of  slaves  at  Rhodes  who  worshiped  under  the 
protection  of  Jupiter  Atabyrius.  ”  Again  Ltiders  says : 
“Naturally  enough,  there  were  societies  that  had  slaves  ir 
their  service.  Kraton,  who  organized  an  eranos  and  was  ita 
priest,  under  the  arrangement  made  by  the  will  of  Attila  had 
among  other  things  belonging  to  the  temple  and  parsonage, 
also  some  slaves  ”  And  farther  on:  “  Kraton,  who  was  in 
the  favor  of  Attila,  and  who  was  a  member  and  a  priest  in 
high  standing,  of  the  great  synod  of  the  Dionysian  mechan¬ 
ics  of  Taos,  had  organized  an  association  of  thiasotes ,  com¬ 
posed  of  mechanics,  and  had  consecrated  it  to  the  honor  of 
the  rergamenian  king,  Attila,  as  he  possessed  some  brilliancy 
at  the  court.  The  members  were  called  ‘  Attalists.  ’  ”  Still 
farther  on:  “ In  his  will  at  last,  according  to  evidence  that 
is  preserved  for  us  in  a  fragment,  he  gives  to  the  union  a  re¬ 
spectable  sum  of  money  that  they  may  be  able  to  indulge  in 
proper  festivities  out  of  its  interest,  according  to  a  clause  in 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


577 


their  rules  and  by-laws.  He  left  them,  among  other  things 
necessary  to  this  purpose — such  as  furniture  of  the  meet¬ 
inghouse,  tools  used  in  the  lamb-sacrifice  and  pomp  of  their 
festivities — also  a  number  of  slaves.” 

Page  99,  Note  29:  “In  Epidamnus  there  were  no  mechanics 
other  than  the  public  slaves.  The  mechanic  arts  were  for 
thiil  reason,  forbidden  and  despised.” 

Page  101,  Note  46:  “Among  the  Helots  who  had  a  claim 
ancJ  desire  to  be  sent  home,  there  appeared  at  the  town  of 
Pylos  a  multitude  who  had  served  the  Lacedaemonians  as 
faithful  soldiers  and  guards.  On  an  investigation  a  large 
number  of  these  men  had  been  adjudged  worthy,  by  their 
conduct,  of  being  set  free.  A  process  of  honorable  dis¬ 
charge  in  which  they  were  to  be  crowned  with  wreaths,  was 
to  be  gone  through  with  as  soon  as  the  number  deemed 
worthy  were  chosen.  Some  two  thousand  of  them  were  ac¬ 
cordingly  selected  from  the  multitude  to  be  adorned  with 
wreaths  of  honor  and  led  to  the  altar  for  sacred  consecra¬ 
tion.  Not  long  afterwards  they  mysteriously  disappeared, 
every  one  of  them,  from  the  place;  and  nobody  ever  could 
conjecture  whither  they  had  vanished.” 

Page  110,  -Note  50:  “There  came  to  my  father’s  mansion  a 
very  wise  man  having  a  golden  chain,  or  collar  studded 
with  amber  beads.  In  the  hall  the  female  servant  and  my 
noble  mother  were  toying  with,  and  admiring  it  while  in 
the  act  of  bartering  for  its  possession.  Secretly  he  nodded 
to  the  woman  and  disappeared  to  his  ship.” 

Page  112,  Note  58:  “Communes  of  Roman  mimic  actors  are 
referred  to,  both  by  name  and  institution,  as  the  Greek 
communists  (mutual  aid  associations)  of  the  Dionysian 
mechanics  that  were  very  numerous  among  the  Greeks.” 

Page  113,  Note  62:  “Ti.  Claudius,  consul,  and  Severus  his 
lictor  in  the  divisions,. ..  .presents  are  distributed  among 
the  members,  man  by  man;  especially  where  the  manning 
of  the  boats  shows  by  his  actual  work  that  he  has  been 
diligent.  Done  by  degree  of  the  order  of  fishermen  and 
divers  of  the  whole  valley  of  the  Tiber,  who  are  granted 
permission  to  keep  an  organization  by  a  law  of  the  Roman 
senate.” 

Page  113,  Note  63:  “It  is  here  worthy  of  observation  that 
the  law  of  Solon  so  constitutes  that  the  sacred  and  civil 
communes  possessed  no  other  legal  right  than  as  associa¬ 
tions  organized  for  purposes  of  business  or  plunder.” 

Page  118,  Note  72:  “And  Plato,  when  a  babe  sleeping  in 
his  cradle,  the  honey-bees  used  to  come  and  alight  upon 
his  lips.  The  interpretation  of  this  was,  that  it  foretold 
the  remarkable  sweetness  of  the  future  eloquence  with 
which  nature  had  gifted  the  infant.” 


578 


APPENDIX. 


Page  119,  Note  74:  “Seeing  that  certain  landed  estates  un¬ 
der  mortgage,  being  provinces  of  the  Roman  people,  are, 
so  to  speak,  our  revenues  (vectigalia).” 

Page  121,  Note  75:  “It  being  not  in  the  province  of  man  to 
curtail  the  unlimited  power  which  it  is  necessary  that  mas¬ 
ters  should  have  over  their  slaves.” 

Page  123,  Note  76:  “Caesar  broke  up  all  the  unions  except 
those  which  were  very  ancient.” 

Page  127,  Note  87:  “The  sodales  are  those  who  are  of  the 
same  union  as  that  which  the  Greek  call  hetairse.”  Again: 
“  ‘The  Law  of  the  Twelve  Tables/  says  Gaius,  ‘gives  to  the 
sodales  unlimited  right  to  combine  for  any  business  they 
require  for  themselves,  so  long  as  they  do  not  rupture  the 
law  of  the  land.  But  this  law  appears  to  be  a  translation  of 
the  law  of  Solon;  which  is  as  follows  (speaking  of  societies 
understood) :  ‘whether  they  be  the  people,  or  brotherhoods, 
or  priests  and  priestesses,  or  boatmen,  or  communists  who 
eat  at  the  common  table,  or  burial  societies  (including  those 
who  prepare  the  feasts  and  holiday  festivities  of  the  mem¬ 
bers),  or  those  occupying  houses  in  common,  or  engaged  in 
traffic  at  sea;  in  fine  all  those  living  for  one  another,  here¬ 
by  are  publicly  proclaimed  in  writing,  free  to  unite  them¬ 
selves/  ” 

Page  127,  Note  88:  “The  words  of  Gaius  it  is  clear,  do  not 
admit  of  being  construed  as  those  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  so 
as  exactly  to  make  them  include  all  of  the  unions;  nor  does 
there  appear  any  reason  why  the  unions  of  handicraftsmen 
should  be  deprived  of  the  right  of  making  rules,  which  was 
granted  to  those  organized  for  religion’s  sake.” 

Page  130,  Note  95:  “Out  of  a  kind  of  hard  marble  found  in 
the  vicinity  of  Eleusis.” 

Page  130,  Note  96:  “Near  an  olive  tree  was  a  well — the 
Erecthian  spring — which,  when  the  south  wind  blew,  gave 
an  indistinct  murmur  like  the  terrible  roar  of  waves — so  the 
Athenians  used  to  relate.  This  was  believed  to  be  Neptune 
when  he  opened  the  abysses  with  his  trident;  and  his  track 
is  impressed  in  the  living  rock  even  to  this  day.  No  man 
desires  to  question  the  story  of  this  briny  fountain;  for  in 
the  citadel  there  was  another  whose  waters  were  bitter 
when  the  dog-day  winds  were  blowing,  at  the  time  that 
Sirius  rose;  and  its  floods  would  rise  and  afterwards  fall, 
giving  to  the  well  the  name  of  Clepsydra.” 

CHAPTER  V. 

Page  134,  Note  1:  “From  Thrace  there  arrived,  during  the 
same  summer,  one  thousand  three  hundred  light-armed  sol¬ 
diers  with  shields,  being  related  to  Jupiter,  who  came  to  Ath¬ 
ens,  and  who  had  been  with  Demosthenes,  the  Athenian 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


579 


general,  in  his  naval  expedition  against  Sicily.  The  Athen¬ 
ians,  as  it  afterwards  became  known  (after  the  disaster  of 
Demosthenes),  had  been  sent  to  Thrace  from  Syracuse.  The 
war  at  Decelea  had  become  expensive,  as  each  one  received 
a  full  drachm  or  seventeen  and  a  half  cents  a  day  for  his 
services.  Decelea,  during  this  summer,  was  the  first  place 
fortified  by  the  forces  of  the  Lacedaemonians.  Afterwards 
guards  were  placed  about  the  towns  with  relays,  as  relief 
guards;  so  that  a  man  occupied  a  station  as  watcher,  con¬ 
stantly  and  without  intermission  and  thus  the  Athenians 
suffered  severe  losses  by  seizures  of  many  things,  and  also 
by  the  ruin  of  their  means  of  producing  money,  thus  spoil¬ 
ing  their  sinews  of  war.  At  first  these  tactics  were  mild, 
but  grew  with  time,  and  the  Lacedaemonians  were  unhinder¬ 
ed  from  enjoying  their  position  on  the  land.  Following  the 
example  of  their  king  Agis  they  placed  guards  everywhere 
to  further  the  advantages  of  war,  thus  badly  perplexing  and 
entangling  the  Athenians.  Everv  place  was  lost.  Even  the 
force  of  hands  in  the  silver  mines,  consisting  of  more  than 
half  of  the  laborers  and  skilled  mechanics,  amounting  to 
upwards  of  twenty  thousand  men,  together  with  the  flocks 
and  the  draft  oxen  and  horses,  ran  away  and  escaped  over 
to  Decelea  by  aid  of  the  guards,  doing  much  damage  day 
by  day  to  the  Athenians  by  this  conduct,  but  freeing  them¬ 
selves  from  many  of  their  hardships.” 

Page  137,  Note  16:  “Cimon  was  not  so  generous  as  rich; 
for  he  had  amassed  a  large  fortune  in  the  mines.” 

Page  139,  Note  28,  Drpmann  says:  “Also  in  the  workshops 
called  ergasteria,  slaves  only  were  to  be  seen.” 

Page  140,  Note  32,  Bucher  remarks  that:  “In  the  year  B.  C. 
413,  some  twenty  thousand  Athenian  mechanics  struck 
work  and  went  over  to  the  Lacedaemonians — a  severe  blow 
to  the  silver  mining  business  at  Laurium.” 

Page  141,  Note  34,  Drumann  says:  “The  greatest  part  of 
the  twenty  thousand  who,  during  the  Peloponnesean  war 
ran  away  and  went  over  to  the  Spartan  garrison  in  the  town 
of  Decelea  in  Attica,  were  from  the  workshops.  Among 
other  things  it  was  stipulated  that  each  would  have  the  ad¬ 
vantage  of  working  for  himself,  giving  a  certain  part  to  the 
master.  By  this  arrangement  industrious  and  frugal  work¬ 
men  could  lay  up  something  over  and  above  expenses  and 
thus  buy  themselves  free.  Many  lived  more  sumptuously 
than  those  who  were  free.”  Same  note,  quoting  Bucher: 
"  ‘Where  many  slaves  of  the  same  nationality  lived  together 
in  the  same  city’  (so  says  Plato,  Laws,  vi.,  777),  ‘great  mis¬ 
fortunes  will  occur;  and  this  is  something  to  be  attributed 
as  the  true  cause  of  insurrections  with  all  their  cruelties.’  ” 
Again;  same  note,  quoting  Macrobius:  “I  have  heard  of 
the  great  indignation  of  heaven  caused  by  the  punishment 


580 


APPENDIX. 


of  slaves.  Once,  in  the  474th  year  from  the  foundation  of 
Rome  one  Autranius  Maximus  fastened  his  slave  to  a  forked 
gibbet  and  in  this  condition  whipped  him  around  the  ring  in 
the  circus  before  the  spectators.  On  account  of  this  cruelty 
Jupiter  was  so  incensed  that  he  ordered  a  certain  Annius  to 
inform  the  senate  that  he  should  withdraw  his  heavenly 
protection  if  such  cruelties  were  not  put  an  end  to.” 

Page  142,  Note  38:  “Tens  of  thousands  of  the  slaves  of 
Attica  worked  in  the  mines.  Poseidon  the  philosopher  de¬ 
clares  that  they  rebelled,  formed  themselves  into  a  com¬ 
pact  body  with  a  guard  and  marched  to  the  acropolis  of 
Sunion  where  for  a  long  time  they  held  themselves,  sending 
out  forces  to  ransack  the  country.  This  was  at  the  very 
point  when  the  second  slave  insurrection  began  in  Sicily.” 

Page  143,  Note  39:  “I,  Xanthos,  the  Lycian  slave  belong¬ 
ing  to  Gains  Orbius,  working  to  the  glory  of  the  God  who, 
as  tutelary  protector  of  men  and  women,  is  our  star  of  for¬ 
tune,  have  consecrated  this  temple  of  Men  Tyrannus,  as  God 
desired.”  In  same  note  Foucart  proceeds:  “The  person 
who,  towards  the  second  century  of  our  era  introduced  the 
cult  of  Men,  was  a  slave  from  Lycia  and  was  employed  by  a 
Roman  property  owner  in  the  mines.  The  god  himself,  either 
in  a  day-dream  or  by  apparition  had  signaled  to  him  to  con¬ 
struct  the  temple.  Thus  the  founder  took  care  to  repeat  in 
two  inscriptions  that  he  had  executed  the  behest  of  Men.” 

Page  143,  Note  40:  “In  the  six  hundred  and  twentieth  year 
of  Rome,  or  before  Christ  134,  the  slaves  working  in  the 
silver  mines  of  Laurium  arose,  killed  their  guards,  took  the 
citadel  of  Sunion  and  laid  Attica  waste  for  a  long  time.” 

Page  144,  Note  41:  “In  the  mines  of  the  Athenians,  also, 
there  occurred  a  tumult  of  slaves  which  was  subdued  by 
Heraclitus  the  praetor.” 

Page  144,  Note  42:  “In  a  similar  manner  the  Greek  world 
was  subjected  to  a  visitation,  although  of  less  proportions. 
According  to  Augustin  (De  Civ.,  Ill,  26),  insurgent  slave 
bands  just  prior  to  the  first  Sicilian  insurrection,  laid  waste 
Macedonia  and  the  neighboring  districts.” 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Page  14T,  Note  8:  “Romulus  gave  to  married  men  the  right 
to  take  the  life  of,  and  the  right  of  intimate  indulgence 
with,  their  female  slaves.” 

Page  149,  Note  12:  “The  award  given  out  of  the  public  treas¬ 
ury  to  the  informants  who  were  slaves,  was  a  wealth  of  ten 
thousand  standard  coins  each,  besides  their  liberty.” 

Page  151,  Note  18:  “At  this  time,  when  Gaul  was  quiet  ex¬ 
cepting  in  her  hopes,  there  arose  an  insurrection  of  the 
slaves  near  the  city  of  Rome.  There  were  some  Carthagen- 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES . 


581 


tan  hostages  held  in  custody  at  Setia.  In  addition  to  these 
who  were  free  men,  there  was  also  a  great  host  of  slaves. 
The  number  of  these  was  increased  from  different  nation¬ 
alities  by  the  recent  African  war  in  which  they  had  been 
taken  prisoners  and  sold  to  masters  in  and  about  the  city  of 
Setia,  as  captive  bondsmen.  Forming  a  conspiracy,  they  sent 
men  of  their  number,  first  into  the  farm  country  of  Setia  it¬ 
self,  and  afterwards  to  Norba  and  Circijus  to  stir  up  auxil¬ 
iaries.  It  happened  that  there  was  soon  to  take  place  a  pas¬ 
time  (the  games);  and  they  arranged  to  have  all  prepara¬ 
tions  ready  on  the  event  of  those  games;  so  that  at  an 
auspicious  moment  when  the  people  were  engrossed  in  the 
enjoyment  and  excitement,  they  should  rise  in  sudden  insur¬ 
rection,  seize  the  cities  of  Setia,  afterwards  Norba  and  then 
Circeji,  and  take  possession.  Intelligence  of  this  terrible 
thing  was  transmitted  to  M.  Cornelius  Merula  at  Rome. 
Two  slaves,  before  daybreak  approached  Merula  and  ex¬ 
posed  all  the  plans  and  intentions  of  the  insurgents.  When 
the  praetor  had  ordered  these  'slaves  to  stay  and  guard  his 
house  he  called  the  senate  together  and  told  them  what  the 
informants  had  said  and  how  they  had  come  to  ask  that  he 
should  hasten  to  suppress  the  conspiracy.  The  result  was 
that  he  was  set  on  the  march  with  but  five  lieutenants  (and 
their  divisions),  giving  orders  along  the  road  for  reinforce¬ 
ments  to  follow.  With  these  troops,  hurriedly  collected  as 
they  marched,  amounting  in  all  to  about  2,000  armed  men, 
he  fell  upon  the  unsuspecting  mutineers.  The  ringleaders 
of  the  conspiracy  being  seized,  the  slaves  took  to  flight 

from  the  town,  the  soldiers  following  on  their  track . 

The  two  informers  were  rewarded  on  an  enormous  scale  and 
their  freedom  given  them.  The  fathers  ordered  that  each 
should  receive  25,000  standard  coins  and  his  liberty;  while 
one — Merula  perhaps — received  100,000  coins.  The  masters 
received  also  the  price  of  their  slaves  lost  in  the  affray.” 

“Not  long  after  the  quelling  of  this  insurrection  it  was  an¬ 
nounced  that  the  remainder  of  the  conspirators  were  stir¬ 
ring  up  the  same  tumults  afresh  and  were  preparing  to  take 
the  town  of  Prseneste  in  the  same  manner.  Thither  Corne¬ 
lius  (Merula)  marched  with  a  force  of  about  500  men;  and 
as  a  result,  those  who  were  engaged  in  the  trouble  were 
punished.  The  country  being  plunged  into  fears,  it  was  nec¬ 
essary  to  remove  the  Carthagenian  hostages  and  prisoners. 
At  Rome  and  among  the  towns  and  villages,  guards  were 
ordered  to  be  stationed  and  a  more  vigilant  watch  was 
established  over  the  great  prison  and  the  prison  quarries, 
which  work  was  consummated  by  the  triumvirs.  The  praetor 
caused  a  written  circular  to  be  published  throughout  Lati- 
um  saying  that  henceforth  the  prisoners  were  to  labor  in 
solitude  and  that  they  should  be  deprived  of  the  privilege 


582 


APPENDIX. 


of  appearing  in  public  and  those  not  Carthagenian  hos* 
tages  should  wear  shackles  of  no  less  than  ten  pounds 
weight,  and  be  confined  in  any,  except  the  public  prison." 

Page  152,  Note  20,  From  Livy’s  Epitome:  “A  conspiracy 
of  slaves  attempted  for  liberating  the  Carthagenian  hos¬ 
tages  is  suppressed." 

Page  153,  Note  22:  “On  the  whole,  it  was  conjectured  that 
the  blame  rested  with  some  secret  doings  of  the  Punic  hos¬ 
tages  and  prisoners." 

Page  154,  Note  27,  Pliny  says:  “L.  Piso  is  the  author  who 
first  gave  an  account  of  it  and  says  that  Tullus  Hostilius 
the  king  who  succeeded  Numa,  constructed  at  the  same 
place  many  and  great  changes  in  the  city.  While  excavating 
the  earth  under  the  Tarpeian  rock  the  workmen  unearthed 
a  human  head.  Tullus  sent  ambassadors  to  Olenus  Calenus, 
a  celebrated  Etruscan  soothsayer,  or  prophet  and  fortune¬ 
teller  to  know  what  he  and  his  tribe  thought  about  it." 

Page  155,  Note  30:  “In  spite  of  this  he  did  not  succeed 
without  the  greatest  difficulty.” 

Page  157,  Note  31:  “Of  these  (the  insurgents),  many  were 
killed  and  many  taken  prisoners;  others  were  scourged  and 
hung  upon  the  cross." 

Page  160,  Note  38:  “L.  Postumius,  to  whom  the  care  as 
propraetor  of  the  province  of  Tarentum  fell,  made  resist¬ 
ance  against  a  conspiracy  of  farmers  and  shepherds  and  the 
rest  of  those  bacchanalian  creatures." 

Page  160,  Note  42:  “Those  seized  were  sent  to  the  Roman 
senate  which  ordered  P.  Cornelius  to  cast  them  into  prison.” 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Page  164,  Note  2,  Macrobius  says:  “Would  you  call  to 
mind  those  who  come  of  the  same  seed?  who  live  under 
the  same  skies  and  who,  like  you,  must  live  and  die?  Slaves 
though  they  be,  they  are  nevertheless  human;  though  only 
poor  slaves,  yet  they  all  have  some  rights  if  you  would 
but  reflect.  Even  if  you  could  see  that  the  slave  were  free, 
he  would  still  serve  you  just  as  well.  Do  you  not  know 
that  Hecuba  was  once  during  her  lifetime  a  slave?  that 
Croesus,  that  the  mother  of  Darius,  that  Diogenes,  even 
Plato  were  all  of  them  slaves?  And  why,  in  the  light  of 
all  these  examples  should  we  hold  in  horror  the  name  of 
servitude?  Slave  he  is,  indeed,  but  because  forced  to  it; 
only  a  slave,  but  perhaps  he  wears  the  soul  of  a  freeman. 
What  will  he  not  do  for  you  even  though  it  be  wrong? 
This  one  administers  to  lusts,  that  one  to  avarice,  another 
to  your  ambitions?  All  are  objects  of  your  hopes  and  all 
are  causes  of  your  fear.”  Continuing:  “It  is  impossible  to 
mix  love  and  fear  together.  Whence,  think  you,  emanates 


TRAJS/  S  LA  riON  O  F  NO  TES. 


583 


the  proverb:  ‘just  as  many  enemies  as  there  are  slaves?’ 
We  may  not  think  we  have  those  enemies,  but  it  is  true;  we 
make  them  when  with  our  superb,  contemptuous  cruelty  we 
force  them  to  submit  to  our  voluptuous  frenzy,  is  it  other¬ 
wise  possible  than  that  it  should  evoke  their  anger  and  fury?” 

Page  164,  Note  3:  “So  also,  the  wealthy  island  of  Chios  was 
at  the  same  time  (B.  C.  134),  the  theatre  of  a  wild  slave 
uprising  which  was  not  put  down  until  many  years  after¬ 
wards.” 

Page  166,  Note  4:  “In  the  middle  of  the  third  century  of 
the  Christian  era.” 

Pages  168-169,  Note  7:  “Hermotius  who  was  of  the  Ped- 
asian  race,  was  a  man  who  meted  out  the  severest  venge¬ 
ance  for  any  injury.  When  taken  by  an  enemy  and  sold  in 
slavery,  he  was  bought  by  a  man  named  Panionius,  a  Chian 
— a  person  who  got  his  living  by  the  practice  of  the  most 
iniquitous  vices.  Boys  of  remarkable  beauty  whenever 
purchased  by  him,  he  caused  to  be  castrated;  and  he  was 
in  the  habit  of  selling  them  in  Ephesus  and  Sardis  at  a 
high  price;  since  those  barbarians  valued  eunuchs  more 
than  other  servants  on  account  of  their  being  more  reliable. 
So  Panionius  among  many  others,  had  this  Hermotius 
emasculated,  as  he  made  his  living  by  that  business.  The 
man,  however,  was  not  in  all  respects,  unfortunate.  He  was 
given  to  the  king  at  Sardis,  as  a  present.  In  the  course  of 
time  he  became  the  most  highly  regarded  by  Xerxes,  of 
any  of  his  numerous  eunuchs.  As  the  king  was  making 
preparations  to  march  with  his  expedition  upon  Athens, 
and  while  at  Sardis — having  gone  to  the  Mysian  country 
with  the  Chians — Panionius  was  met  at  Atarneus.  Herm¬ 
otius  became  acquainted  with  Panionius  by  recognition, 
and  induced  Him  to  come  over  to  Asia  with  his  family  and 
settle  there,  offering  him  many  advantages.  He  accepted 
the  plan  with  cheer  and  brought  his  family.  Hermotius 
thus  succeeding  in  getting  him  into  his  power  together  with 
his  whole  family,  uttered  to  him  the  following  words:  ‘You, 
who,  meanest  of  mankind  by  trade  and  deeds  of  infamy! 
To  your  face  I  demand  to  know  what  I  have  ever  done,  ol 
what  harm  any  of  my  race  have  done  to  you  that  from  a 
man  I  should  be  made  into  nothing?  You  thought,  perhaps, 
that  your  tricks  should  be  passed  over  by  the  Almighty, 
unheeded,  unavenged.  But  you  have  been  allured  into  my 
grasp  by  your  dastardly  deeds.  You  cannot,  therefore,  com¬ 
plain  of  the  retribution  I  am  going  to  inflict  upon  you.’ 
After  upbraiding  him  in  this  strain  his  sons  were  also 
brought  into  the  place  and  Panionius  was  forced  to  com¬ 
mit  the  act  of  castration  upon  his  own  sons,  four  in  num¬ 
ber.  He  did  it;  and  then  in  reverse  order,  these  very  sons 


584 


APPENDIX . 


were  driven  to  emasculate  their  father  on  the  spot.  Suck 
was  the  vengeance  of  Hermotius,  the  Chian.” 

Page  169,  Note  10:  “It  was  quite  the  reverse  with  the  thi- 
asotes  and  eranists.  Not  only  were  their  doors  open  to 
women  but  also  to  strangers.  Persons  who  were  well-to-do 
or  even  slaves  had  access.  This  last  point  is  very  import¬ 
ant;  and  fortunately  the  witnesses  of  their  epigraphic  monu¬ 
ments  are  sufficiently  explicit  and  precise  in  language  to 
establish  the  evidence  completely.  It  would  be  useless  to 
cite  all  the  inscriptions  in  proof;  and  I  have  chosen  a  few 
only,  and  of  those  which  show  this  to  have  been  the  cause 
in  the  different  countries.  The  specimens  are  numerous 
enough  to  warrant  the  conclusions;  for  where  one  fails, 
another  makes  the  point  good,  that  the  admission  of  wo¬ 
men,  of  strangers,  of  freedmen  and  of  slaves  was  a  uni¬ 
versal  characteristic  of  all  these  associations.”  Same  note, 
page  170,  Foucart  further  explains:  “One  inscription  in  the 
island  of  Rhodes  mentions  a  religious  society  composed  of 
slaves  belonging  to  the  state  or  public.  Part  of  its  value 
is  diminished  by  a  mutilation  which  detracts  from  its  testi¬ 
mony.  But  an  examination  of  the  proper  names  to  be  found 
in  other  inscriptions  proves  that  these  Rhodian  associa¬ 
tions  were  in  the  common  habit  of  admitting  freedmen  and 
probably,  also  slaves.”  Farther  on:  “A  fragment  of  an 
inscription  restored  by  Keil,  by  great  perseverance  and  to 
all  appearance,  with  correctness,  shows  the  composition  of 
the  society  in  the  particular  membership  which  placed  it 
there  that  it  was  under  the  patronage  of  Jupiter  Atabyrius 
(or  the  Jove  that  dwelt  in  the  tallest  mountain  of  Rhodes). 
It  appears  to  have  been  composed  of  the  public  slaves  of 
the  city  of  Rhodes,  and  is  one  of  those  which  exercised  the 
priesthood.  It  reads:  ‘Under  the  god  of  Atabyrius  is  the 
union  of  the  slaves  of  the  city.  Inscribed  in  letters,  by  or¬ 
der  of  the  holy  priest  of  Zeus,  and  governed  by  the  rul¬ 
ing  authorities  of  the  Rhodians,  in  obedience  to  Jupiter 
Atabyrius.’  ” 

Page  170,  Note  11:  “These  things  wrote  Nymphodorus  in 
his  voyage  to  Asia.  He  described  how  the  slaves  of  the 
Chians  ran  away  from  their  masters  and  how  they  escaped 
to  the  mountains  and  the  highest  summits,  and  how  these 
masters  were  devastated  by  their  combined  forces.” 

Page  171,  Note  12:  “A  little  before  our  own  time — so  the 
Chians  tell  us — there  was  a  certain  slave,  who  having  es¬ 
caped,  lived  in  the  mountains;  and  being  endowed  with  a 
warlike  spirit,  was  declared  the  commander  and  king  of  the 
fugitive  slaves,  and  following  the  habits  of  other  kings, 
gathered  an  army,  against  whom  the  Chians  afterwards 
sent  military  expeditions.  But  they  could  make  no  headway 
against  him.  Drimakos  (Primacus),  as  this  slave  was  called, 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


585 


when  he  saw  his  masters  overcome,  made  a  speech  in  their 
presence  as  follows:” 

Page  177,  Note  19:  “Should  any  of  the  features  of  this  story 
appear  doubtful  and  fictitious  it  may  be  said  that  there  ex¬ 
ists  not  the  least  ground  for  uncertainty  as  to  its  genuine¬ 
ness;  and  even  if  the  shrewd  Chian  merchants  put  up  the 
temple  for  the  object  of  awing  down  their  slaves,  the  lesson 
still  remains  as  a  true  mirror,  showing  the  condition  of 
things  at  that  time.” 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Page  180,  Note  2:  “Viriathus,  who  took  the  command,  and 
many  times  broke  the  Romans  to  pieces,  was  himself,  one 
of  the  Spanish  (Lusitanian)  workpeople  who  lived  in  the 
place.  From  boyhood  he  had  worked  and  passed  his  life 
in  the  mountains  and  came  up  with  energy,  strength  and 
spirit.  He  excelled  in  bodily  forces,  swiftness  and  agility 
all  the  rest  of  his  associates  and  was  much  thought  of  in 
Spain.  He  used  to  abstain  from  luxuries,  even  getting  along 
with  just  enough  food  to  barely  answer  his  necessities. 
He  had  with  him  many  strong-hearted  friends,  and  became 
widely  known  among  lawless  mountaineers,  settling  their 
quarrels;  and  at  length  assuming  their  leadership  he  estab¬ 
lished  a  sharp  discipline  about  him  and  thrived  with  the 
success  of  his  combats  with  the  brigands.  He  was  looked 
upon  as  a  superior;  not  only  in  personal  strength  but  also 
for  his  tactics.” 

Page  180,  Note  3:  “Viriathus,  the  commander  of  the  guil- 
leras,  was  a  Lusitanian  Spaniard  who  was  just  in  his  dis¬ 
tribution  and  sharing  of  the  spoils,  and  had  sufficient  honor 
and  humanity  to  make  a  just  choice  in  distributing  pres¬ 
ents;  for  he  gave  them  simply  a  division  in  common,  and 
was  the  right  person  to  be  regarded  by  them  as  a  common 
benefactor  and  savior.” 

Page  180,  Note  4:  “Viriathus  in  Spain,  who  was  originally 
a  shepherd,  turned  from  a  shepherd  to  a  hunter,  and  from 
a  hunter  to  a  robber,  and  from  that,  was  even  created 
general  of  the  army  and  took  possession  of  all  Lusitania.” 

Page  181,  Note  5,  Livy  says:  “When  L.  Scribonius  the 
tribune  of  the  people,  brought  in  a  bill,  taking  back  into 
the  confidence  of  the  Romans,  all  the  Lusitanians  whom 
Galba  had  brought  as  slaves  with  him  into  Gaul,  restoring 
them  to  liberty,  M.  Cato  made  a  strong  speech  in  its  favor. 
His  oration  is  still  extant  in  the  histories.  Q.  Fulvius 
Noble,  who  had  often  been  excoriated  by  Cato,  defended 
Galba.  When  Galba  saw  that  he  was  going  to  be  con¬ 
demned,  or  that  the  case  was  going  against  him,  he  threw 
his  arms  around  his  two  sons  already  young  men,  and  also 
embraced  the  young  son  of  Sulpicius  Gallus,  of  whom  he 


586 


APPENDIX. 


was  the  guardian;  and  in  this  miserable  and  pitiable  condi- 
tion  so  pleaded  that  the  decree  was  not  sustained.” 

Page  182,  Note  6,  Appian  says:  “This  man  fought  the  Rom¬ 
ans  for  about  eight  years;  and  it  appears  to  me  that  Viri- 
athus  made  it  exceedingly  uncomfortable  for  them;  for 
things  became  so  entangled  in  that  time  that  even  the  loss 
of  Spain  was  threatened.”  Livy  says:  “Viriathus  broke 
up  the  army  of  Vetillius  and  seized  also  that  general  him¬ 
self;  after  him  C.  Plautius  the  praetor,  continued  the  strug¬ 
gle  with  no  better  success.  So  great  was  the  terror  caused 
by  this  enemy  that  it  was  necessary  to  send  both  a  consul 
and  a  consular  army.”  Eutrope  says:  “Instigated  by  terror, 
Viriathus  was  killed  by  his  own  men,  after  having  waged 
war  for  a  period  of  fourteen  years  against  the  Romans.  He 
was  first  a  shepherd,  afterwards  a  robber  and  then  a  gen¬ 
eral  and  roused  all  the  population  of  the  land  against  the 
Romans,  being  regarded  as  the  emancipator  of  Spain.” 

Page  183,  Note  7:  “Viriathus,  after  performing  a  three- 
days’  march,  took  sure  possession  of  Segobria  and  there 
devoted  a  day  to  religious  sacrifices,” 

Page  183,  Note  8:  “It  seemed  advisable  to  get  away  to  the 
others;  and  in  the  night  he  escaped  through  pathless  ways 
with  fleet  horses  and  arrived  at  Tribola,  the  Romans  fol¬ 
lowing;  but  they  had  not  the  power  to  overtake  him  on 
account  of  the  weight  of  their  armor,  their  ignorance  of 
the  roads  and  the  inexperience  of  the  horses.” 

Page  183,  Note  9,  Frontin  remarks:  “Viriathus,  placing  some 
of  his  soldiers  in  secret  localities,  sent  a  few  of  them  out 
foraging  for  the  cattle  of  the  Segobrians.  These  retaliated 
by  frequent  sorties  against  the  pickets,  pretending  to  es¬ 
cape,  drew  them  into  an  ambush  where  they  were  cut  to 
pieces  by  the  army.” 

Page  184,  Note  10;  This  remark  of  Diodorus  is  but  a  cut¬ 
ting  from  his  more  complete  sentences  given  in  note  2, 
page  180,  of  which  see  translation. 

Page  186,  Note  13:  “At  the  request  of  the  allied  army,  an¬ 
other  general  arrived  with  a  force  of  15,000  foot  soldiers  and 
2,000  horse.  They  marched  into  Orsena,  a  city  of  Spain.” 

Page  186,  Note  14:  “In  all,  about  18,000  foot  and  1,600  horse. 
He  sent  letters  to  Mikipse,  the  Numidian  king,  ordering 
him  to  send  the  strongest  and  swiftest  elephants  from  Af¬ 
rica,  into  Itycca,  to  augment  the  army  in  those  parts  of  the 
Spanish  peninsula.” 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Page  192,  Note  1:  “During  the  power  and  under  the  com¬ 
mand  of  Sempronius  Gracchus,  the  army  of  Rome  subdued 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


587 


the  Sardinians.  In  this  province  the  number  of  the  enemy 
taken  orisoners  or  killed,  amounted  to  upwards  of  80,000.” 

Page  193,  Note  3:  “We  are  informed  that  30,000  were  cap¬ 
tured  and  reduced  to  slavery.” 

Page  195,  Note  13:  “In  Epidamnus  there  were  no  mechan¬ 
ics  except  the  public  slaves.” 

Page  196,  Note  17:  “They  were  all  branded.  Only  the  field 
workers  were  fettered.” 

Page  199,  Note  27:  “He  was  a  great  magician  and  per¬ 
former  of  miracles  and  stood  in  close  communion  with  the 
gods,  receiving  inspirations  from  tiiem  not  only  by  dreams, 
but  actually  seeing  them  in  open  day,  as  in  life.” 

Page  201,  Note  32:  “It  should  be  understood  that  in  Sicily 

there  was  a  daughter  of  Damophilus, . Hermias  took 

her  to  Catana  and  left  her  in  the  care  of  some  relatives.” 

Page  208,  Note  42:  “More  than  ordinary  capability.”  Sie- 
fert  also  says:  “They  elected  nim  their  king  because  he 
had  originated  the  outbreak.” 

Page  209,  Note  43:  “This  was  the  first  strange  thing  done; 
he  gathered  2,000  as  he  moved  along,  and  then  breaking 
open  the  prisons  made  soldiers  of  more  than  60,000  in¬ 
mates.” 

Page  211,  Note  49:  “And  he  sent  those  who  were  bound 
in  chains  and  fettered,  into  the  prison  workshops.” 

Page  212,  Note  54:  “One  Gorgos  with  the  surname  of  Cam- 
balos,  who  on  account  of  his  wealth  was  a  well-known  citi¬ 
zen  of  Morgantion  in  the  upper  districts  of  Symsethus,  was 
out  on  a  hunting  excursion  and  fell  in  with  a  band  of  the 
slaves  belonging  to  the  insurrection.  He  fled  back  home¬ 
ward,  following  the  main  road  to  the  city,  but  soon  met  his 
father  on  horseback  riding  along  the  same  road.  The  father 
immediately  dismounted  and  begged  his  son  to  save  him¬ 
self  by  the  use  of  his  own  horse.  Father  and  son  thus  in 
tender  solicitude  for  each  other’s  safety  squandered  the 
precious  moments  and  whilst  in  the  strife  of  filial  love  and 
parental  tenderness  they  were  exhausting  their  time,  the 
insurgents  arrived  and  killed  them  both.” 

Page  214,  Note  57:  “Regarding  the  chronology  of  the  Si¬ 
cilian  slave  war  and  other  matters  thereto  related,  consult 
the  Excurz.” 

Page  215,  Note  64:  “‘Out  of  those  places  situated  about 
Taurus.’  According  to  paragraph  20,  his  brother  was 
named  Comanus  (C.oma  in  Valerius  Maximus);  and  it  is 
tolerably  safe  to  conclude  from  this  that  Comana  was  the 
birthplace  of  the  two  brothers.  But  whether  this  was  the 
Coma  of  Pamphylia  or  that  of  Cappadocia,  whence  this 
name  is  derived  is  a  question  impossible  to  answer.  The 


588 


APPENDIX. 


Cappadocian  Comana  was  situated  among  the  Anti-Taurian 
hills,  upon  the  river  Saros,  and  was  a  capital  city  of  Syria, 
where  the  cult  of  Ma  (Artemis  Taurica),  according  to 
Strabo,  XII.,  p.  535,  was  encouraged.  If  this  be  so,  it 
serves  as  a  cause  for  the  bold  turn  of  Cleon  when  he  came 
in  juxtaposition  with  the  religious  superstition  of  Emms.” 

Page  216,  Note  66:  “At  the  time  C.  Fulvius  was  consul,  this 
war  of  Eunus  began.  Eunus.  was  a  slave  who  was  by  race 
a  Syrian  and  who  gathered  a  force  of  agricultural  slaves. 
Breaking  open  the  workhouse  prisons,  he  raised  his  army 
to  70,000  strong  and  massing  them,  fought  many  battles 
with  the  Roman  people.” 

Page  217,  Note  67:  “A  certain  Syrian  named  Eunus,  pre¬ 
tending  like  a  fanatic,  to  be  in  the  good  graces  of  the  god¬ 
dess  by  throwing  forth  fiery  scintillations  resembling  her 
hair,  aroused  a  multitude  of  slaves  as  great  as  an  imperial 
army,  and  these  he  emancipated  and  supplied  with  arms. 
To  prove  that  he  was  divine,  he  would  place  a  nut  in  his 
mouth,  in  which  was  hidden  sulphur  and  fire,  and  draw¬ 
ing  the  breath  gently,  would  blow  forth  flames.” 

Page  218,  Note  70:  “The  army  amounted  to  about  200,000 
men.”  Again:  “Not  long  afterwards  the  number  of  the 
insurgents  is  found  to  rise  to  200,000  men  including  in  all, 
the  soldiers,  sythe-armed  militia  and  raw  troops;  and  they 
fight  successfully,  seldom  suffering  defeats.” 

Page  219,  Note  72:  “Whenever  the  slightest  victory  was  won 
the  strike  towered  with  redoubled  fierceness  and  pressed 
onward  without  cessation  in  all  the  cruelty  of  social  wars.” 

Page  220,  Note  78:  “Never  was  there  such  a  condition  or 
such  an  assembling  of  the  slaves  in  Sicily.  There  were 
many  powerful  cities  which  came  to  grief:  and  innumer¬ 
able  were  the  men,  the  women  and  the  works  of  art  that 
were  hurled  into  direst  misfortune;  in  fact  the  whole  island 
fell  into  the  power  of  the  runaway  slaves.” 

Page  221,  Note  81,  quoting  Bucher:  “Eunus  at  length  be¬ 
came  master  of  almost  the  entire  island  of  Sicily  ****  prob¬ 
ably  even  of  Syracuse.  Diodorus  (fragment  9),  says:  ‘To 
these  gluttons  even  the  sanctity  of  the  Holy  Fish  did  not 
cause  a  pause  to  the  evils  which  the  gods  used,  making 
an  example  of  everybody  to  show  their  desperate  condi¬ 
tion;  for  the  gods  used  these  dreadful  methods  to  teach 
against  the  blasphemy  of  the  people  of  the  age  and  to  show 
men  better  ways.  This  fragment  of  Diodorus  is  found  in 
close  proximity  to  the  Vatican  excerpt  which  is  entirely 
on  the  slave  uprising.  It  is  impossible  to  consider  this  ‘Holy 
Fish’  as  any  other  than  the  Arethusa  of  which  Diodorus 
speaks  in  book  V.,  3,  as  follows ‘This  Arethusa  was  not. 
only  regarded  from  very  ancient  times  as  having  many  and 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


589 


large  fishes  but  even  the  same  reverence  is  handed  down 
to  this  day,  ascribing  to  these  fishes  a  sacredness  to  men; 
since  men  eating  of  them  are  strong  in  war  and  are  en¬ 
dowed  with  the  faculty  of  combined  physical  force  and 
vigor  of  understanding  great  things.  So  also  in  our  time 
these  virtues  we  seek  in  our  youth.’  ” 

Page  222,  Note  84,  “Tiberius  Gracchus  was  a  famous  man, 
brilliant  in  his  love  of  honor  and  it  may  be  said,  exceed¬ 
ingly  powerful  in  his  gift  of  language;  and  was  everywhere 
known  by  all  the  officers  of  the  government.  He  told  in 
solemn  words  to  the  Italians,  how  the  want  of  means  for 
the  people  and  the  depopulation  of  the  country  were  caused 
by  destruction  perpetrated  by.the  military  powers,  and  how 
hopeless  was  the  condition  of  the  inhabitants.  With  this 
servile  element,  never  having  any  confidence  with  their 
masters,  the  feeling  rose  high  against  despotism  and  made 
them  comrades.  The  evil  augmented  among  the  agricul¬ 
tural  districts  and  the  war  of  the  Romans  against  them  was 
not  slight  nor  easily  quelled.  Things  assumed  a  venture¬ 
some  phase  both  many  colored  and  huge.  Gracchus  declared 
his  intention  to  re-establish  the  old  law  of  Licinius  Stolo, 
according  to  which  no  person  could  possess  more  than  500 
acres  of  land — a  law  which  though  many  years  old,  re¬ 
mained  unchanged.” 

Page  224,  Note  89,  The  reading  of  these  words  is:  “Ritchl, 
P.  L.  M.  VIII,  1,  Body  of  Latin  Inscriptions,  by  Theodore 
Mommsen,  no.  042  and  others.  Compare  Nitsch.  in  another 
place,  p.  249.  Evidence  regarding  the  second  Sicilian  in¬ 
surrection  is  to  be  had  in  Dr.  Bockh’s  Body  of  Greek  In¬ 
scriptions,  nos.  5,570,  5,687,  5748,  z.  Th.,  where  occurs  the 
name  of  Athenion.  No.  5,748  is  a  stone  slab  coming  from 
Leontini  on  which  is  inscribed  the  word  APAMEO,  and  it 
is  probable  that  this  refers  to  Eunus  of  Apamea.  In  the 
Body  of  Latin  Inscriptions,  no.  646  and  others  following, 
are  certainly  inscriptions  which  were  designed  to  represent 
the  wars  of  Eunus.” 

Page  224,  Note  94,  Siefert  in  his  First  Sicilian  Servile  War, 
Says:  “Pseudo  Asconius  comments  on  Cicero’s  Verres,  II, 
p.  212:  ‘A  certain  Rupilius,  one  of  the  aristocratic  tax- 
gatherers,  was  made  consul.’  Again,  Valerius  Maximus, 
vi.,  9,  8,  narrates  that  he  was  even  an  employe  at  an  earlier 
date,  of  the  government  service  as  follows:  ‘P.  Rupilius  did 
not  collect  the  taxes  in  Sicily  but  gave  out  the  work  to  the 
equestrian  taxgatherers.  In  fact  he  upheld  the  frauds  com¬ 
mitted  in  cheating  the  government  out  of  the  revenues,  by 
the  authority  of  office,  colluding  with  his  associates.’  He 
was  a  friend  of  Scipio  the  Younger,  according  to  Cicero 
(Laelius,  19,).  When  consul  he  conducted,  during  the  first 
part  of  his  consulate  year,  an  investigation  of  the  so-re- 


590 


APPENDIX . 


puted  misdeeds  of  Tiberius  Gracchus  and  was  aided  by  his 
colleague,  Popilius  Lsenas  (Cicero,  Lselius,  11;  Valerius 
Maximus,  iv.,  7,  1).  According  to  Vellejus  Paterculus,  (II., 
vii.),  he  was,  on  account  of  the  pressure  with  which  this 
investigation  was  urged,  driven,  like  Popilius,  before  the 
tribunal;  and  other  writers  on  the  subject  only  mention 
Popilius  as  the  object  of  the  persecution.  Compare  Pauly, 
R.  E.,  V.,  1900.  Later,  Rupilius  in  indignation  and  horror, 
came  to  his  end  for  fraudulently  intriguing  to  get  his 
brother  elected  consul/’ 

Page  226,  Note  97:  “Throughout  Sicily  misfortune  prevailed. 
Cities,  together  with  their  inhabitants,  indiscriminately  fell 
into  the  hands  of  their  conquerors  and  many  were  the 
armies  that  were  hacked  to  pieces,  until  Rupilius,  the  gen¬ 
eral  of  the  Romans,  saved  Tauromanion  to  Rome  in  the 
stanch  blockade  and  siege  which  he  conducted  against  this 
city.  He  starved  the  rebels  into  indescribable  want  and 
famine  to  such  extent,  that  in  their  enclosure  they  fell 
to  killing  children  and  then  their  helpless  women,  and  even 
devoured  one  another  to  gratify  the  cravings  of  hunger.” 

Page  229,  Note  101:  “The  slaves  were  delivered  to  torment 
and  butchery,  most  of  them  being  thrown  from  steep  prec¬ 
ipices  of  rocks.  So  also  here  at  Enna,  thousands  were 
chopped  down.  The  total  number  of  the  slaves  killed  at 
Enna  and  Tauromanion  exceeded  20,000.” 

Page  230,  Note  105,  Diodorus  says:  “Secured  and  under 
guard,  his  body  devoured  by  lice,  he  passed  a  life  of 
wretched  indolence  at  Morgantion.”  Livy  says:  “He  was 
caught,  and  was  devoured  by  lice  in  prison.”  Farther  on 
(same  note),  Siefert:  “With  four  of  his  servants,  one  of 
whom  was  the  cook,  the  others  the  bath  attendant,  the 
baker  and  the  king’s  fool,  he  was  caught  in  a  hole.  He 
died  in  prison  of  the  lousy  sickness,  either  in  Morgantion 
or  in  Rome.” 

CHAPTER  X. 

Page  234,  Note  3:  “Eumenes,  for  whom  they  pompously 
exhibited  their  friendship,  advancing  the  idea  of  peace  for 
Antioch,  by  means  of  bribes,  was  held  in  check.  After 
the  death  of  Eumenes,  a  guard  was  kept  at  the  cost  of  the 
state,  and  the  agricultural  captives  were  held  in  pitiable- 
slavery  and  contempt  by  Attains,  the  king.  He  made,  un¬ 
der  deception,  an  impious  will  by  which  his  son  Aristonicus 
was  ignored  because  he  had  asked  for  the  succession.  This 
being  a  triumph  for  the  latter’s  enemies,  the  combined 
power  of  the  slaves  laid  Asia  under  siege.  All  Bithynia 
soon  fell  and  Nicomides  dying,  this  son  of  Nusa  whom 
they  called  the  queen,  created  havoc.” 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES , 


591 


Page  236,  Note  8:  “The  term  ‘Heliopolitan’  calls  to  mind 
that  it  was  the  same  that  Eunus  used  in  fanaticizing  his 
Syrians.” 

Page  236,  Note  9:  “Likewise  the  Syrians  celebrate  and  wor¬ 
ship  the  sun  in  the  name  of  Jupiter  whom  they  call  a  ‘Sun- 
God’  in  their  greatest  ceremonies,  and  the  country  where 
it  is  done  is  termed  ‘Heliopolis.’” 

Page  238,  Note  12:  “P.  Crassus  who  came  as  consul  to  Asia 
for  the  purpose  of  waging  war  against  Aristonicus,  had  ac¬ 
quired  such  perfection  in  the  Greek  language  that  he  could 
speak  five  different  dialects  of  it  so  as  to  be  thoroughly 
ready  in  all  parts.  This  was  a  thing  necessary  in  obtaining 
the  love  of  the  allies  through  the  persuasive  force  of  con¬ 
ciliation;  as  it  gave  him  the  advantage  of  making  known 
and  demanding  the  enforcement  of  the  decrees.” 

Page  241,  Note  18:  “When  the  senate  called  the  consuls, 
Rupilia  and  Laenatus,  to  demand  of  them  what  Gracch.us 
really  wished  to  do,  and  they  referred  the  matter  to  Laelius 
whose  prayers  and  counsels  they  were  in  the  habit  of  con¬ 
sulting,  an  accusation  was  found  against  Rlossius  who  had 
been  familiar  with  Gracchus.  Blossius  was  brought  before 
them  and  the  following  question  put:  ‘What  would  you 
have  done  if  Gracchus  had  ordered  you  to  destroy  the  tem¬ 
ple  of  the  great  Jupiter?  Would  you  not  have  executed  the 
wish  of  that  man?’  ‘Gracchus  would  have  never  given  me 
such  an  order,’  said  Blossius,  ‘because  he  was  too  wise  a 
man  to  do  that;  but  he  was  not  afraid  of  demanding  the 
right,  even  in  the  teeth  of  the  whole  Roman  senate.’  But 
what  followed  was  much  more  daring  and  dangerous;  for 
on  being  pressed  further  by  the  question  of  Laelius  who 
persevered  in  obtaining  the  answer,  Blossius  acknowledged 
that  if  Gracchus  had  given  him  the  order  he  would  have 
obeyed.’  ” 

Page  241,  Note  19:  “The  brothers  Tiberius  and  Caius  Grac¬ 
chus  had  been  adjudged  guilty  of  grave  seditions  by  the 
senate  in  forcing  their  laws  against  the  Roman  people  and 
both  had  been  killed  by  the  nobles — one  by  Nasicus  and 
the  other  by  Opimius.  When  Tiberius  Gracchus  fell,  Blos¬ 
sius  escaped  to  king  Aristonicus.  The  affairs  of  Aristoni¬ 
cus  having  gone  wrong,  Blossius  committed  suicide. 

Page  242,  Note  20,  Speaking  of  the  strength  and  fortitude 
of  the  soldier’s  soul  when  in  a  great  misfortune,  I  will  tell 
the  story  of  a  Roman  consul:  P.  Crassus,  when  directing 
the  war  against  Aristonicus  in  Asia  was,  after  his  defeat, 
in  custody  of  Thracians  at  a  prison  between  Elea  and 
Smyrna.  But  he  would  not  surrender,  and  resented  in¬ 
decent  actions  against  him  to  obtain  a  coveted  death.  One 
day  he  thrust  his  horsewhip  which  he  used  when  riding, 
into  the  eye  of  his  barbarian  guard.  So  great  was  the  pain 


692 


APPENDIX. 


inflicted  that  this  guard  drew  his  sword  and  plunged  it  into 
his  side.  But  in  taking  vengeance  upon  a  Roman  soldier 
he  liberated  a  consul  from  disgrace.  This  shows  that  Cras- 
sus  in  a  broil  with  an  unworthy  man,  wished  the  good 
fortune  of  escaping  graver  humiliations'  since  by  the  act 
he  prudently,  valiantly,  courageously,  broke  awav  from  the 
miserable  condition  he  was  held  in  by  mean  persons,  and 
was  free.  Aristonicus  had  reduced  him  but  .he  had  gained 
his  own  liberty.” 

Page  243,  Note  21:  “Not  slight  was  the  shamelessness  of 
M.  Paperna  in  his  disgrace  of  the  consulship  which  he  held 
after  he  got  to  be  consul  before  becoming  a  Roman  citizen; 
though  he  was  more  serviceable  in  war  than  Varro.  He 
conquered  king  Aristonicus,  becoming  the  punisher  and 
avenger  of  the  disaster  of  Crassus.  While  he  was  tri¬ 
umphing,  he  was  condemned  to  death  under  a  clause  of  the 
Papian  law;  since  as  his  father  was  not  a  Roman,  the  peo¬ 
ple  demanded  his  return  to  his  original  estate  because  he 
had  no  right  to  rise  according  to  decision  of  the  Sabelline 
judgment.  In  this  manner  the  good  name  of  Paperna  fell 
because  he  had  obtained  his  consulship  under  false  pre¬ 
tences.  The  glory  of  his  victory  fell  away  and  he  wandered 
about  for  the  rest  of  his  life  in  exile.” 

Page  244,  Note  22,  From  Bucher:  “The  latter  consisted  in 
celebrations  on  the  part  of  those  enjoying  their  holidays, 
in  fasting  and  expiation,  also  in  luxurious  dances  amid  the 
music  of  flute  and  drum  and  the  wild  tumult  which  they 
imagined  would  call  up  and  propitiate  their  divinities,  and 
bring  to  pass  wondrous  things.  If  at  that  time,  this  cult 
was  in  practice  in  Greece  by  great  numbers  of  secret  soci¬ 
eties  and  upright  brotherhoods  (see  pp.  34,  92),  then  it  be¬ 
comes  obvious  how  they  spread  their  advocacy,  not  so 
much  through  the  smoother  waters  of  mere  turbulent 
thought  in  which  they  expressed  the  dizzy  dissatisfaction 
of  their  race,  as  through  the  more  suggestive  suasion  of 
their  peculiar  communist  fraternization  and  the  natural  so¬ 
cial  system  of  propaganda  of  the  Greeks  whose  organiza¬ 
tions  admitted  and  accepted  all  members  from  foreign  parts 
whether  Greek  or  barbarian,  male  or  female,  free  or  en¬ 
slaved.  Thence  comes  the  designation  ‘citizens  of  the  sun.’ 
This  term  drew  the  line  between  the  followers  of  Aristoni¬ 
cus  who  were  the  anointed  of  the  congregation  of  Adad, 
and  the  unbelievers;  thus  separating  the  poor  and  wretched 
from  enemies  who  persecuted  them,  as  already  shown  in 
the  case  of  Eunus,  who  was  called  a  Syrian  to  distinguish 
him  in  religious  matters — he  being  a  representative  fol 
lower  of  Atargatis.” 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES . 


593 


CHAPTER  XI. 

Page  247,  Notel:  “Sources  of  our  knowledge  regarding  the 
second  Sicilian  slave-war  are  as  follows:  Florus,  Condensed 
Roman  History,  book  III,  chapter  19;  Dion  Cassius,  Ex¬ 
cerpts  by  Piresc,  nos.  101,  104;  Diodorus  the  Sicilian,  book 
XXXVI;  Livy,  book  XLIX.  The  length  of  the  time  that  it 
lasted,  according  to  the  following  paragraph,  was  about 
four  years:  ‘The  slave-insurgents’  war,  as  I  say,  therefore 
lasted  nearly  four  years  and  was  a  stately  and  majestic  up¬ 
heaval.’  M.  Aquilliu's  brought  it  to  an  end  iin  the  year  B.  C. 
99,  after  having  taken  supreme  command  which  was  at  the 
beginning  of  his  term  as  consul,  B.  C.  101.  The  war  broke 
out  at  the  time  Licinius  Nerva  was  propraetor.  L.  Lucullus 
succeeded  him  in  the  command,  and  after  him  came  C.  Ser- 
vilius.  Thus  the  rebellion  rose  during  the  year  B.  C.  104. 
Eusebius  erroneously  makes  the  end  to  have  occurred  four 
years  later,  or  at  the  171st  Olympiad,  that  is,  B.  C.  95.” 

Page  247,  Note  2:  “The  pool  of  the  twins.” 

Page  248,  Note  3:  “Speaking  of  all  the  divinities  it  is  not 
worth  while  to  leave  unmentioned,  notwithstanding  the 
want  of*  faith  which  we  remember,  on  the  whole,  attaches 
to  the  very  ancient  temple  of  peculiar  surroundings,  called 
the  pool  or  crater.  The  tradition  is,  that  this  temple  and 
place  of  refuge  is  of  awe-inspiring  origin  and  in  the  minds 
of  many  it  is  strange  and  marvelous.  To  begin  with,  there 
are  craters  out  of  which  spout  monstrous  sparks  from  the 
unspeakable  depths.  Along  side  these  is  the  cauldron 
heated  by  great  fires  which  throw  red-hot  flames  and  wa¬ 
ters  high  into  the  air  above.  This  seething  fluid  tossed  up 
into  the  sky,  presents  a  whitish  appearance,  and  nobody 
has  the  force  of  determination  to  venture  to  touch  it;  for 
the  moments  of  quell  are  succeeded  by  other  spoutings  of 
the  foaming  and  boiling  waters.  This  water  which  has 
escaped  from  the  abyss  has  the  smell  of  brimstone;  and 
the  yawning  hole  roars  with  loud,  frequent  and  frightful 
bellowings.  But  the  most  marvelous  of  all  these  things  is, 
that  the  waters  neither  overflow  nor  vary  in  volume 
though  there  is  a  motion  as  of  life  in  the  water  that  floods 
and  sinks  and  rises  again  in  a  manner  wonderful  to  relate. 
So  strong  is  the  sacred  essence  surrounding  this  temple 
that  the  greatest  of  the  earth  assemble  there  to  have  the 
gods  bear  solemn  witness  to  their  deal;  for  they  administer 
condign  punishment  upon  those  who  have  used  falsehood 
and  perjury.  Some  who  have  been  deprived  of  sight  re¬ 
ceive  it  back  by  visiting  this  temple.  Regarding  the 
superstition  as  to  these  great  properties,  there  are 
men  who  dispute  the  exceeding  merits  of  the  temple, 
and  doubt  its  superhuman  attributes  as  a  witness  be¬ 
tween  right  and  wrong.  This  holy  place  is  sometimes  an 


m 


APPENDIX. 


asylum  for  watching  over  and  preserving  the  unfortunates 
and  slaves,  from  their  unreasonable  masters,  affording  them 
refuge  in  which  to  conceal  themselves,  and  furnishing  them 
aid  to  deliverance.  The  despots  are  here  without  power  to 
exercise  against  fugitives,  so  that  they  can  remain  unhurt 
until,  through  the  holy  witnesses  and  mediation  of  the  sacred 
power,  an  arbitration  can  be  adjusted  between  them  by  means 
of  reason  and  persuasion.  Here  all  are  on  an  equal  footing, 
masters  and  slaves  alike ;  and  the  poor  and  faithful  are  no 
more  pursued  under  this  awe-inspiring  fiat  of  the  divinities. 
This  temple  stands  in  august  magnificence  in  an  open,  neg¬ 
lected  spot,  and  is  furnished  with  porches  and  other  befitting 
places  for  repose.” 

Page  248,  Note  4:  “The  weird  legend  is  abroad  that  this 
temple  is  among  the  most  awe-inspiring  and  ancient  of  all 
the  wonders  of  the  world.  ” 

Page  249,  Note  5:  “Marius  gave  orders  that  an  allied  army 
should  be  summoned  from  the  outstanding  nations  bordering 
on  the  sea.  Following  these  orders  they  were  sent  for.  He 
also  sent  to  Nicomides,  king  of  Bithynia  for  aid.  Nicomides 
however,  sent  backsword  that  most  of  the  people  of  his  realm 
were  slaves  reduced  to  that  condition  by  conquest.  Bat  as 
nobody  of  such  as  would  answer  the  summons  could  be  made 
soldiers  while  slaves,  it  would  be  necessary  to  enact  emanci¬ 
pation  decrees  touching  their  case.  So  in  consequence  of 
this  law,  Licinius  Nerva  would  have  to  set  the  slaves  free  be¬ 
fore  they  could  become  recruits.  Thus  in  a  few  days,  more 
than  800  of  the  strongest  slaves  were  assembled  to  receive 
their  liberty.  All  the  slaves  on  the  island  held  hopes  of  de¬ 
liverance.  ” 

Page  249,  Note  7:  “Flower  of  the  Roman  cavalry,  orna¬ 
ment  of  the  state,  the  very  fundament  of  government.  ” 

Page  250,  Note  10:  “  Drove  the  war  in  every  possible  man¬ 
ner,  in  blasphemy  against  gods  and  law  and  order,  with  allied 
armies,  made  up  of  freedmen  and  freemen  whether  of  domes¬ 
tic  or  of  foreign  birth.  ” 

Page  251,  Note  11 :  “  Here  abounded  prisons  where  the 

agricultural  hands  were  chained.  ” 

Page  251,  Note  12 :  “  What  marvelous  work !  First  2,000, 

gathered  from  the  wayside  and  then,  as  by  the  customs  and 
rights  of  war,  after  breaking  open  the  prisons,  he  constructed 
an  army  from  over  60,000  prisoners.” 

Page  251,  Note  13:  “  When  called  together  to  be  made  sol¬ 

diers  of  the  army  and  they  beheld  their  danger,  they  revolted; 
but  Nerva,  incited  to  it  either  through  desire  of  gain,  or  in 
compassion  for  the  masters,  accommodated  himself  to  the 
situation,  and  breaking  faith  in  his  haste,  with  the  forms  of 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


595 


law  before  a  tribunal,  advised  the  slaves  to  go  back  to  their 
masters  again,  as  the  circumstances  did  not  at  present  ad¬ 
mit  of  their  emancipation.  Hereupon  the  slaves,  after  hold¬ 
ing  a  conference,  got  away  from  Syracuse  and  escaped  to  the 
temple  of  the  Twins  at  the  brimstone  lake  and  resolved  with 
each  other,  upon  rebellion.  ” 

Page  251,  Note  14:  “  The  city  is  to  be  sought  for  among 

the  hills  of  Nebrode,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Engyon.” 

Page  252,  Note  15  “  The  soldiers  butchered  the  insurgent 

rebels,  and  those  who  had  been  captured  and  proved  to  have 
acted  as  leaders,  were  hanged  ( crucified ).  ” 

Page  253,  Note  16  :  “Among  the  soldiers  who  had  quit  their 
huts  and  liberated  themselves  were  some  belonging  to  a  man 
named  Poplius  Clonius,  a  Roman  cavalier  or  knight.  The 
slaves  murdered  him  and  collected  a  force  of  80  men.  ” 

Page  253,  Note  17:  “The  rebellion  rose  to  not  less  than 
2,000  persons.  ” 

Page  254,  Note  20:  “And  the  many  insurgents  who,  aug¬ 
menting  day  by  day  in  secret,  amounted  in  a  short  time  to 
more  than  6,000,  who  acted  a  scene  truly  wonderful.  When 
they  had  called  a  general  council,  their  first  step  was  to  elect 
a  king  named  Salvius,  believed  by  them  to  be  in  the  good 
graces  of  the  gods  and  sacred  things — a  fluteplayer,  skilled  in 
sleight  of  hand,  fond  of  women,  and  held  choice  by  the  god¬ 
desses,  Ceres  and  Proserpine.” 

Page  255,  Note  22  :  “  Nevertheless  Salvius  showed  greater 

ability  in  his  command  than  might  have  been  expected,  judg¬ 
ing  by  the  station  he  rose  out  of.  ” 

Page  256,  Note  25  “The  insurgents  suddenly  made  an  at¬ 
tack  and  having  the  advantage  of  position  to  aid  them  violently 
burst  upon  their  enemy  quickly  gaining  a  victory,  taking  the 
place  and  driving  some  of  the  army  to  flight.  The  proclama¬ 
tion  of  the  general  that  he  would  hurt  none  of  the  rebelling 
slaves  who  should  throw  down  their  arms  had  its  effect;  for 
most  of  them  did  so  and  fled.  Salvius  by  this  turn  of  things, 
gained  a  strategical  point  over  his  enemy,  took  the  citadel, 
turned  the  battle  into  a  victory  and  seized  a  large  quantity 
of  arms.  The  number  killed  outright  in  this  battle  was  not 
above  600.  These  were  Italians  and  Sicilians.  They  had 
felt  sympathy  with  the  strikers  and  used  the  general’s  proc¬ 
lamation  favorably.  The  number  taken  prisoners  amounted 
to  about  4,000.  ” 

Page  257,  Note  26  :  “  But  he  did  not  at  first  succeed  in  tak¬ 
ing  Morgantion.  Whether  he  ever  took  the  city  in  conse¬ 
quence  of  this  victory  is  not  fully  apparent  from  the  informa¬ 
tion  that  has  come  down  to  us.  ” 

Page  257,  Note  27  :  “  Salvius  laid  siege  to  Morgantion  over- 


APPENDIX : 


596 


running  the  country,  to  the  base  of  the  Leontine  range,  and 
gathering  a  large  army  of  select  men  not  less  than  30,000  in 
number.  With  these  he  gave  sacrifice  and  offerings  to  the 
hero  Twins,  allotting  one  of  the  choicest  purple  robes  as  an 
offering  of  gratitude  for  the  victory.  He  proclaimed  himself 
king.  His  name  among  the  insurgent  soldiers  was  henceforth 
Tryphon.  ”  The  language  is  unmistakable.  Still  Dr.  Siefert 
muses :  “  However,  these  words  of  Diodorus  may  have  ref¬ 

erence  to  the  victory  over  Licinius  Nerva;  and  indeed,  it 
must  be  so,  for  ‘  poliorkesas  ’  ( laying  siege  to  a  city  ),  can¬ 
not  be  construed  to  comprehend  as  much  as  ‘  ekpoliorkesas  ’ 
(taking  a  city  by  siege.  ” 

Page  257,  "Note  28:  “In  some  incomprehensible  manner 
the  praetor  proved  treacherous  to  these  promises,  and  by  the 
means,  drove  the  larger  part  of  these  valiant  men  into  the 
camp  of  the  insurgents.  ” 

Page  258,  Note  29:  “  Atheriion,  a  shepherd,  having  mur¬ 

dered  his  owner,  and  set  his  family  at  liberty  from  the  work 
prison,  put  himself  in  martial  order.  This  man  dressed  him¬ 
self  in  purple,  assumed  a  silver  cane  and  adorned  his  head  with 
regal  trappings  in  no  less  sumptuous  taste  than  did  that  fan¬ 
atical  fellow  (Eunus)  before  him,  bugled  his  army  together 
and  even  much  more  bitterly  than  Eunus  for  whom  he  seems 
to  have  fought  in  vindication,  overthrew  towns,  castles  and 
cities,  raving  and  raging  against  masters  and  slaves  more  and 
more  violently  as  deserters  (from  the  slave  owners)  swelled 
the  ranks.” 

Fage  259,  Note  33:  “This  man,  clothed  in  purple,  sporting 
a  silver  cane.  ” 

Page  260,  Note  35 :  “  Being  conversant  with  the  star-gazers’ 
art  he  had  read  in  the  heavens  that  he  was  to  become  king 
over  all  Sicily  ;  and  to  this  end  he  looked  about  him  for  a 
place  that  would  seem  most  suitable  on  the  island  — which  he 
considered  his  own  property — whereat  to  locate  himself.  He 
made  an  attack  upon  the  fortified  town  of  Lilybaeum  which 
did  not  succeed.  This  was  with  a  force  of  10,000  men.  It 
however,  served  to  strengthen  his  powers  of  foresight;  for 
he  resolved,  with  great  wisdom,  to  abandon  the  siege,  actu¬ 
ated  by  the  impression  that  the  gods  were  against  the  enter¬ 
prise  and  consequently  a  disaster  could  be  avoided  only  with 
a  miracle.  This  foreknowledge  soon  verified  itself.  A  body 
of  Moorish  troops  auxiliary  to  the  Romans,  sent  by  Bocchus 
of  Mauritania  under  the  new  treaty,  and  commanded  by  Go- 
mon,  for  the  relief  of  the  besieged  city  of  Lilybaeum,  imme¬ 
diately  on  their  arrival  made  in  the  night,  an  attack  on  Athe- 
nion  and  before  he  could  withdraw  to  a  place  of  safety,  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  inflicting  upon  him  a  considerable  damage.” 
Page  260,  Note  36:  “  One  can  scarcely  estimate  the  diflicul- 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


597 


ties  which  were  to  be  expected  by  the  leaders  of  an  insurrec¬ 
tion  of  slaves.” 

Page  261,  Note  37,  Diodorus  says  regarding  tramps :  “  An 

immense  confusion  of  things  took  place  and  we  are  told  that 
all  worked  badly.  Vast  multitudes  got  possession  of  Sicily 
entire.  Not  only  slaves  but  also  freedmen  in  a  state  of  great 
poverty  were  committing  every  sort  of  rapine  and  flagitious 
deed.  And  whoever  interfered,  whether  bond  or  free,  or 
spoke  against  their  wrong-doing,  they  shamelessly  murdered. 
Scarcely  could  people  venture  into  the  open  spaces  in  cities 
which  belonged  to  them ;  and  as  for  matters  outside,  these 
freedmen  and  emancipated  slaves  judged  themselves  unre¬ 
strained  by  any  law  from  committing  acts  of  violence.  More 
than  this,  many  others,  forgetting  their  natural  instincts  of 
humanity  and  right,  audaciously  wandered  throughout  Sicily 
on  their  course  of  destruction.  ”  Continuing,  Diodorus  says 
in  fragment  11 :  “Not  alone  were  the  rebels  who  devastated 
Sicily,  slaves,  but  often  free  people;  and  all  persons  who  pos¬ 
sessed  neither  home  nor  lands  were  converted  into  robl3ers 
and  bandits  who  ranged  up  and  down  the  country,  impelled 
alike  by  their  poverty  and  their  evil-mindedness,  carrying  off 
horses  and  cattle,  tearing  into  the  granaries  of  the  towns  and 
indiscriminately  beheading  slaves  or  free  men,  or  whomso¬ 
ever  they  met,  so  that  none  should  remain  alive  to  inform  on 
their  deeds  of  deviltry.  And  when  all  sources  of  justice  in 
Sicily  had  been  uprooted — not  even  a  Roman  prastor  left  to 
demand  law  and  order — they  all  fell  into  an  unrestrained  de¬ 
bauchery  and  with  impunity  carried  on  a  horrible  licentious¬ 
ness.  There  was  no  place  free  from  the  hordes  who  ravaged 
and  robbed,  particularly  where  the  wealthier  ones  had  prem¬ 
ises  to  invade.  And  those  who,  a  little  before,  were  sur¬ 
rounded  by  fortune  and  fame  as  being  the  richest  among  the 
citizens,  suddenly  found  themselves  not  only  reduced  to  mis¬ 
ery  and  poverty,  but  cudgeled  and  hacked  in  the  most  con¬ 
temptuous  manner  by  slaves,  and  subjected  to  all  sorts  of  in¬ 
solence.  Everywhere  were  the  robbers  stationed,  ready  to 
commit  outrage  in  the  free  places  of  cities,  outside  their  walls 
or  wherever  they  thought  they  could  do  violence  Great 
was  the  confusion  in  each  one  of  the  large  towns  and  cities; 
for  no  law  of  justice  remained.  The  insurgents,  when  they 
had  beleaguered  all  with  their  army,  and  the  land  of  their 
masters  whom  they  hated  with  ungovernable  rage,  marched 
up  and  down  the  highways  with  fire  and  sword,  motived  by 
some  inexplicable  cupidity.  Whoever  remained  in  the  cities, 
such  as  slaves,  the  sick,  and  those  sympathizing  with  the  re¬ 
bellion  became  a  terror  to  their  masters.  ” 

age  261,  Note  38 :  “  These  free  people  often  practiced  more 
henious  acts  of  power  than  the  slaves.  A  reign  of  confusion 


598 


APPENDIX. 


— an  enormity  of  troubles,  as  Diodorus  calls  it — fell  upon 
them.  ” 

Page  261,  Note  39  :  “  Athenion,  who  did  not  take  a  city.  ” 

Siefert  however,  remarks  :  “  Cicero  must  here  be  interpreted 
with  circumspection  as  having  had  an  object  in  making  this 
mention.  ” 

Page  262,  Note  40:  “  £ A tlienio pastor,  ’  the  shepherd . 

laid  waste  the  country.  By  this  man  the  praetorian  army 
also,  was  cut  to  pieces  and  the  camps  of  Servilius  as  well  as 
Lucullus  were  seized.”  Note  h.  of  Fisher:  “  The  camps  of 
Servilius  and  of  Lucullus  were  seized.  ’  Florus  had  other 
histories  which  we  do  not  possess;  for  in  these  that  we  still 
have,  it  appears  that  not  only  was  Servilius  not  captured 
but  that  Lucullus  also,  was  not  driven  by  the  slaves.”  Du- 
ker’s  comments  read :  “  From  this  too,  Diodorus  in  his  36th 
book,  charges  these  things  to  a  certain  Salvius,  to  whom 
Athenion  was  like  a  commander  to  a  king.” 

Page  264,  Note  42,  “  What  were  the  motives  inspiring  him 

to  this  conduct  is  not  clear;  it  is  nevertheless  apparent  that 
Tryphon  suspected  him  as  a  secret  rival ;  for  so  soon  as  fa¬ 
vorable  opportunity  presented  itself  he  had  him  arrested  and 
put  where  he  could  do  no  harm.” 

Page  264,  Note  43  :  “  Having  by  the  exercise  of  judgment 

gotten  rid  of  certain  powerful  persons  and  established  his 
councils  around  him,  he  put  on  the  Greek  robes  of  rank  and 
donned  the  mantle  of  purple  with  the  broad-bordered  tunic 
and  chiton  to  denote  great  name  and  style,  he  surrounded 
himself  with  a  guard  of  lictors  having  their  whips  and  sac¬ 
rificial  axe,  and  all  other  such  things  as  seem  to  befit  them¬ 
selves  to  the  kingly  estate.  ” 

Page  266,  Note  45  :  “  After  some  skirmishing,  they  closed 

in  upon  each  other  in  regular  conflict,  which  swayed  to  and 
fro  for  a  long  time  ere  its  results  were  decided.”  Same  note 
quoting  Diodorus  :  “  They  closed  together,  but  not  until 

they  had  been  drawn  in  by  the  skirmishing.  ” 

Page  266,  Note  46:  “  Athenion  with  200  picked  cavalry¬ 

men  undertook  an  assault  and  struck  down  every  one  in  his 
way;  but  unfortunately  he  received  three  wounds  as  a  result 
which  rendered  him  helpless.  The  slaves  seeing  this,  lost 
courage  and  ran.  ” 

Page  267,  Note  49  :  “  When  at  last,  after  nine  days  from 

the  date  of  the  battle,  Lucullus  arrived  before  the  fortifica¬ 
tions  to  commence  a  siege,  the  wavering  courage  of  the 
insurgents  had  again  been  restored.  ” 

Page  267,  Note  50:  “The  camps  of  Lucullus  having  been 
taken,  Athenion  overturned  villages,  cities  and  castles.”  Sie¬ 
fert,  same  note:  “Certainly,  the  camps  of  Lucullus  must 
have  been  stormed.  ” 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


509 


Page  268,  Note  51 :  “  Tryphon  dying,  the  command  of  the 

army  fell  to  Athenion  who  laid  siege  to  cities.  ” 

Page  269,  Note  55 :  “  M.  Aquillius  the  proconsul,  contended 

vigorously.  ” 

Page  269,  Note  56:  “Athenion  who,  after  the  death  of  Try¬ 
phon  which  had  occurred  in  the  meantime,  had  become  king 
of  the  slaves,  met  Servilius  with  great  boldness  and  drove 
him  from  the  field.  After  his  camps  were  taken,  Servilius 
dared  not  again  venture  into  battle,  and  the  slave-king  was 
able  to  ransack,  the  country  unhindered  and  got  into  his  grasp 
the  castles  and  small  cities.  ” 

Page  269,  Note  57 :  “  The  revolted  cities  followed,  among 

which  were  Hybla  and  Macella  and  some  others  of  less  im¬ 
portance.  ” 

Page  270,  Note  58 :  “  By  force  he  seized  Macella,  a  city  sit¬ 
uated  in  the  neighborhood  of  iEgesta,  ” 

Page  270,  Note  59:  “Athenion  threw  himself  against  him 
in  open  conflict  and  drove  him  from  the  field.  ” 

Page  271,  Note  61 :  “  Athenion  threw  himself  against  him 

etc.,  but  fell  while  thus  engaged,  at  the  hands  of  the  consul, 
who  himself  received  wounds  upon  the  head  and  breast.” 

Page  271,  Note  62 :  “  Athenion  the  king  of  the  rebelling 

slaves,  throwing  together  his  forces,  fought  heroically.  Ru- 

Eillius  killed  him,  although  he  himself  received  a  wound  in  his 
ead.  ” 

Page  271,  Note  63:  “Whilst  praetor  in  Sicily,  I  pursued  and 
captured  runaway  Italian  slaves  and  restored  817  of  them  to 
to  their  masters.  ” 

Page  272,  Note  66,  Same  as  note  55. 

Page  273,  Note  68:  “Many  thought  that  the  glory  of  the 

fallen  ones  was  greater  than  that  of  the  surviving  victors.  ” 
Page  273,  Note  69 :  “  When  M.  Aqnillius,  accused  of  mal¬ 

feasance  in  office,  was  defending  himself,  he  was  unwilling 
to  question  the  umpires  (witnesses)  and  M.  Antonius  acted 
as  his  lawyer.  While  making  a  powerful  speech  in  his  de¬ 
fense  Antonius  tore  the  garment  from  his  client’s  breast,  re¬ 
vealing  the  honest  scars.  The  judges  no  longer  remaining  in 
doubt,  Aquillius  was  adjudged  innocent.” 

Page  274,  Note  70,  Granier  says:  “  A  very  characteristic 
trait  existed,  which  was  the  same  in  Eunus  and  in  Athenion; 
and  this  was,  that  in  revolting,  neither  one  of  them  had  any 
idea  of  abolishing  slavery  and  of  establishing  conditions  of 
equality.  Hardly  did  they  see  themselves  in  command  of  force 
than  they  forthwith  forgot  that  they  ever  had  their  own  necks 
skinned  with  chains.  They  tasted  with  delicate  relish  the  pre¬ 
rogatives  of  masters.  It  is  thus  easy  to  understand  how  cas¬ 
tles,  villages  and  cities  were  delivered  over  to  pillage.  ” 


600 


APPENDIX. 


CHAPTER  XIL 

Page  277,  Note  1 :  “In  the  great  work  of  Nicholas  of  Da¬ 
mascus  the  slave  war  was  recounted  in  the  110th  book,  from 
which  we  have  a  fragment  that  appears  in  Athenieus,  IV., 
153,  F.  This  fragment  is  given  by  Muller,  in  a  Latin  trans¬ 
lation  which  I  here  give,  on  account  of  the  Latin  being  gen¬ 
erally  more  easy  to  read  than  the  Greek.  It  is  as  follows : 
‘Nicholas  of  Damascus,  a  philosopher  of  the  peripatetic  sect, 
writes  in  his  110th  book  of  histories  these  words,  describing 
how  they  used  to  pair  gladiators  at  their  dinners :  The  Ro¬ 
mans  not  only  hold  gladiatorial  spectacles  in  the  assemblages 
and  amphitheatres,  such  as  were  borrowed  from  the  Etruscan 
customs,  but  they  also  do  it  while  at  their  banquets  of  guests. 
The  way  they  do  it  is  this :  They  invite  their  friends  to  a 
dinner;  and  between  the  courses  they  introduce,  sometimes 
one,  sometimes  two,  or  sometimes  three  pairs  of  gladiators 
whom  they  exhibit  to  the  guests  in  battle.  In  this  manner 
after  they  have  been  gorged  with  wine  and  are  full  of  sumpt¬ 
uous  hilarity,  the  gladiators  are  ordered  on  the  scene ;  and 
when  one  of  them  falls  with  his  throat  cut,  the  whole  com¬ 
pany  of  fe asters  fall  to  applauding,  exhilarated  by  the  spec¬ 
tacle.  Indeed,  there  is  proof  that  sometimes  beautiful  wo¬ 
men  whom  the  master  has  bought  for  the  occasion,  fight  each 
other  with  steel.  There  are  others  also  who  say  that  even 
little  boys  below  the  age  of  puberty,  contribute  to  the  grati¬ 
fication  of  this  delicious  passion.  But  the  public  who  held 
such  atrocities  in  detestation,  ordered  a  law  to  stop  it.’  The 
whole  looks  as  if  these  dreadful  things  might  have  given  a 
motive  to  the  revolt  of  Spartacus.  ” 

Page  277,  Note  2 :  “  The  first  gladiatorial  function  ever  per¬ 
formed  at  Rome  was  in  the  Forum  Boarium  at  the  time  Ap- 
pius  Claudius  and  M.  Fulvius  were  consuls.  It  was  given  by 
M.  and  D.  Brutus,  in  honor  of  their  deceased  father  who  was 
incinerated.  A  battle  of  athletes  was  arranged  through  the 
munificence  of  M.  Scaurus.  ” 

Page  278,  Note  3  :  “  ‘  Function  of  gladiators.  ’  The  origin 

of  the  gladiatorial  combats  is  in  the  funeral  and  comes  from 
the  Etruscans,  although  the  Etruscans  may  possibly  have  de¬ 
rived  it  from  the  Greeks.  But  from  whatsoever  the  source, 
the  cause  was  the  funeral,  or  burial.  For  inasmuch  as  it  was 
formerly  believed  that  the  souls  of  dead  men  were  propiti¬ 
ated  by  human  blood,  they  used  to  immolate  their  captives 
of  war  and  even  slaves  of  their  own  hearth  and  nourishment, 
to  the  funeral  rites.  After  having  been  customary  in  placat¬ 
ing  the  avengers  of  impiety,  it  differentiated  into  a  source  of 
voluptuousness ;  and  thus  the  praotice  operated  in  two  ways 
to  propitiate  the  wise  and  great,  and  afterwards  for  Mineral 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


601 


solemnities  where  feasts  or  banquets  were  given.  Such  is 
the  gladiatorial  function.  So  from  this  the  fighters  are  called 
funereal  or  sepulchral  gladiators.  The  gladiators,  or,  as  Livy 
and  others  have  it,  ‘  gladiatorial  function,’  did  not  necesses- 
sarily  mean  the  function  in  this  sense,  but  was  the  common 
or  popular  term  in  use  when  speaking  of  the  amphitheatre.  ” 

Page  279,  Note  5,  No.  2,551  reads:  “  Poetelius,  a  Syrian 
who  teaches  a  gladiatorial  school  at  Forina  where  you  can  buy 
or  sell  a  lot  for  the  ring.”  No.  2,555  is:  “  Inscriptions  repre¬ 
senting  gladiators,  that  have  been  preserved  in  the  museum 
at  Rome  and  catalogued  by  Marini  in  his  Records,  vol.  I.,  p. 
165.  ”  The  inscription  itself  reads :  “  Astianax  came  out 

victorious  on  the  first  day  of  the  ninth  month  of  the  Roman 
year;  although  he  lost  his  own  life.  One  antagonist  was 
Symmachus  Maternus  (or  perhaps,  a  relative  of  Astianax  on 
his  mother’s  side),  who  was  skillful  in  the  use  of  weapons.” 
Scliambach,  studying  the  probable  age  of  Spartacus  from 
data  given  in  various  inscriptions,  says :  “  Regarding  his 

age,  we  have  no  historical  reports  from  the  ancients ;  yet  in 
spite  of  this  fact  the  age  of  Spartacus  is  by  no  means  hard  to 
get  at.  It  is  natural  that  people  should  have  chosen  young 
men ;  at  any  rate  those  not  above  middle  age.  The  tomb-^ 
stones  for  gladiators  that  have  come  to  our  knowledge  show¬ 
ing  ages  at  the  time  they  fell  in  battle,  establish  this  fact.  We 
find  in  Hegenbuch’s  edition  of  Orell’s  Inscriptions  the  fol¬ 
lowing  data  of  deaths  of  gladiators :  No.  2,572  gives  the  age 
of  the  gladiator,  at  22  years.  No.  2,592  shows  one  who  fell 
at  27  years.  No.  2,571,  one  who  fell  at  30.  No  2,590  gives 
the  age  at  46.  Very  rarely  does  the  age  of  the  gladiator  rise 
above  this  latter  figure.  We  shall  consequently  not  miss  far 
from  the  mark  by  setting  the  age  of  gladiators  at  something 
between  30  and  40  years.  ” 

Page  281  Note  10:  “For  although  slaves  are  low  in  estate 
of  manhood  and  fortune,  and  liable  to  punishment,  yet  they 
are  a  species  of  mankind,” 

Page  281,  Note  11 :  “  The  true  meaning  of  family  is  prop¬ 

erty.  It  comprehends  the  land,  the  house,  the  money,  the 
slaves,  etc.” 

Page  282,  Note  13 :  “  The  war  that  was  instigated  by  Spar¬ 

tacus  the  general,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  find  a  name  for.  ”  Scham- 
bach,  same  note,  says :  “  That  Spartacus  was  a  Thracian  by 
birth  is  a  matter  on  which  all  information  agrees.  Plutarch 
even  adds  that  he  was  of  a  nomadic  tribe.  Steven  of  Byzan¬ 
tium  mentions  a  Thracian  city  of  the  same  name  From 
Thucydides,  II.,  101,  we  learn  that  there  was  a  royal  dynasty 
of  the  Thracian  house  of  Odrysae,  bearing  the  name  Spardo- 
kos.  We  are  shown  by  the  inscriptions  and  coins  that  the 
name  Spartokos  was  common  among  the  rulers  along  the 


602 


APPENDIX. 


Bosphorus.  Compare  Bockh,  Body  of  Greek  Inscriptions, 
vol.  II.,  91.  It  is  possible,  therefore,  that  our  Spartacus,  in 
his  own  country,  might  have  been  clothed  with  the  rank  of 
nobility. 

Page  283,  Note  15 :  “On  the  laws  that  were  enacted  against 
the  unions:  ‘Frequently  they  organized  communistic  socie¬ 
ties  without  authority  of  the  public  statutes,  out  of  the  quar¬ 
relsome  elements  of  the  people,  who  thus  became  a  public 

nuisance . and  on  this  account  many  of  the  unions  wrere 

afterwards  suppressed  by  law.’  ” 

Page  284,  Note  21:  “  Speech  of  Spartacus :  A  group  sculpt¬ 
ured  in  marble  by  Barrias,  /1872 ;  Spartacus  the  father  of  the 
hero,  appears  chained  and  nailed  to  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  about 
to  expire,  etc.  ” 

Page  285,  Note  22:  “That  Spartacus  was  a  Thracian  by 
birth,  is  agreed  to  by  all  accounts  of  him.” 

Page  286,  Note  27:  “From  this  reflex  of  humanity  as  one 
views  it  in  the  light  of  a  fresh  power  overwhelming  the  work!, 
the  regular  demand  of  business  enterprise  was  satisfied.  All 
the  tilne  there  were  multitudes  of  slaves  imported  to  Italy 
from  the  north,  from  the  regions  of  the  Black  Sea,  from  Syria 
and  Lybia  through  slave  merchants.  For  a  long  time  Delos 
was  the  head-quarters  of  this  business.  At  the  time  of  its 
highest  success,  which  was  about  b.  c.  100,  no  less  than  10,000 
slaves  are  said  to  have  been  landed  here  in  a  single  day.  It 
is  self-evident  that  Rome  was  an  important  center  of  the  slave 
trade.  How  the  slave  dealers  came  in  possession  of  their 
wares  was  never  questioned.  Kidnaping  by  land  and  sea 
constituted  the  man-hunt  such  as  is  to-day  being  carried  on 
in  Africa.  It  was  no  uncommon  thing  to  see  a  great  multi¬ 
tude  brought  in  who  had  been  victimized  through  secret 
machinations  and  private  feuds  as  well  as  those  coming  into 
possession  of  traders  by  exchange  and  barter.” 

Page  287,  Note  28:  “Pyrrhus,  who  had  been  called  by  the 
people  of  Tarentum  as  an  aid  against  the  Romans,  in  order 
to  lrelp  the  effeminate  citizens,  forbade  the  communistic  table 
or  Greek  system  of  taking  their  meals  in  common,  as  one  of 
his  first  regulations.” 

Page  287,  Note  32:  “And  they  built  the  prison  which  is 
said  to  have  been  called  the  ‘home  of  the  Roman  proletaries.’ 
Thus,  in  order  that  he  might  call  out  at  any  time,  and  often, 
that  is,  in  order  that  he  might  frequently,  and  again  and 
again  be  her  judge  and  lest  she  should  resist  him,  and  vindi¬ 
cate  herself  through  the  law,  he  took  away  her  liberty  and 
reduced  her  to  a  slave.  If  she  did  not  succumb,  he  could  in 
this  case,  order  her  to  prison  and  in  chains.  Seldom  was 
there  ever  such  a  commotion  of  human  feelings,  or  such  a 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


603 


power  of  the  people,  determined  to  bring  him  to  punishment; 
for  they  saw  by  this,  how  easily  their  own  liberty  might  be 
taken  away.  So  Appius  Claudius  was  thrown  into  prison.’' 

Page  289,  Note  35:  “He  had  served  in  the  legions  as  an 
auxiliary;  but  being  too  proud  to  accept  a  species  of  servitude 
disguised  in  the  name  of  the  ‘alliance/  he  had  deserted  at 
the  head  of  a  company  of  his  fellow  citizens.  But  being 
caught  and  sold,  his  courage  and  physical  powers  were  forced 
into  play  as  a  gladiator.  ” 

Page  289,  Note  36 :  “  He  met  with  some  gladiators  belong¬ 

ing  to  a  certain  Lentulus  Batiatus  at  Capua,  many  of  whom 
were  Gauls  and  Thracians.”  Remark  of  Floras:  “Since 
they  had  already  done  menial  work  in  the  army,  they  were 
ordered  to  act  as  gladiators — a  sort  of  infamous  human  crea¬ 
ture  of  the  meanest  quality  and  a  butt  of  derision ;  yet  they 
brought  on  a  calamity.  ”  Schambach’s  remark :  “  They 
now  elected  the  Thracian,  Spartacus,  general-in-chief,  and 
the  two  Gauls,  Crixus  and  (Enomaus,  as  generals  of  the  sec¬ 
ond  degree.  It  is  with  extreme  probability,  judging  from 
the  vote  which  decided  this  result,  that  we  can  set  down  the 
proportion  of  the  Thracians  as  one-third,  and  that  of  the  Gauls 
as  two-thirds — a  proportion  which  does  not  materially  vary 
in  the  coming  course  of  events.  ” 

Page  290,  Note  37,  Schambach’s  remark :  “  So  far  as  the  pre¬ 
vious  vicissitudes  in  the  life  of  Spartacus  are  concerned,  this 
holds  good:  that  he  had  for  a  time  been  a  soldier  in  the  Ro¬ 
man  militia,  with  pay ;  probably  in  the  force  of  the  procon¬ 
sul  P.  Claudius,  who  had  been  assigned  to  the  work  of  break¬ 
ing  down  what  remained  of  the  free  ranks  of  the  Macedonian 
Thracians.  He  had  in  this  service  probably  acquired  that  ex¬ 
act  knowledge  of  Roman  military  tactics  which  was  an  indis¬ 
pensable  condition  to  his  future  victories.  According  to  Flo¬ 
ras,  he  then  deserted  and  became  a  marauding  guerrilla.  He 
was  taken  prisoner  while  in  this  capacity.  Appian  does  not 
coincide  with  this  view  where  (  book  I.,  116 ),  he  says :  ‘  Be¬ 
ing  sold  as  a  prisoner  of  war  to  be  one  of  the  gladiators.’  Nei¬ 
ther  does  Yarro’s  fragment  (Charis,  I.,  108),  where  he  says: 
‘Spartacus,  who  was  innocent,  was  thrown  as  a  gladiator,  to 
be  killed  with  steel ;  ’  since  they  speak  against  the  testimony 
of  Floras.  We  are  informed  by  Plutarch  (Crassus.  8),  that 
‘  he  first  came  into  Rome  on  sale;  ’  that  he  had  many  a  time 
changed  owners  before  he  came  to  the  Capuan  fighting  school 
of  Lentulus  Batiatus.  Plutarch  also  relates  an  anecdote  of 
him  after  his  arrival  in  Rome,  to  the  effect  that  a  snake  once 
coiled  itself  about  him  in  his  sleep  and  that  a  female  Thracian 
fortune-teller  interpreted  the  circumstance  to  mean  that  ‘he 
was  to  become  great  and  feared,  and  even  to  his  unhappy 
end,  happy.’ — a  prophecy  which,  especially  in  its  last  part, 
leaves  nothing  more  to  wish  for.” 


604 


APPENDIX : 


Page  291,  Note  39  :  “  Nor  did  he  decline  his  pay,  as  a  sol¬ 

dier  of  Thrace.  From  a  soldier,  he  became  a  deserter  ;  from 
that,  a  robber  and  then  a  gladiator,  doing  duty  to  the  amuse¬ 
ment  of  gentlemen.” 

Page  291,  Note  40,  The  inscription  reads :  “  M.  Aquillius 
and  M.  F.  G-ailus  were  proconsuls  at  the  time  I  was  marching 
from  South  Italy  to  Capua.  Along  the  highway  of  Pontis  I 
put  registers  showing  the  number  captured,  as  follows :  2 
at  Nuceria;  123  at  Capua;  73  at  Murianum ;  123  at  Cosa- 
num;  180  at  Valencia  On  the  strait  were  put  231,  and  at 
Rhegium  237.  In  the  stretch  from  Capua  to  Rhegium,  1,321. 
And  also  at  the  time  I  was  praetor  in  Sicily,  I  captured  917 
Italian  slaves  and  returned  them  ( to  their  owners  ),  to  culti¬ 
vate  the  land.  ” 

Page  292,  Note  41 :  “  About  this  time  gladiators  were  brought 

to  Italy  and  lodged  at  Capua  to  be  trained  for  the  show.  Spar- 
tacus  a  Thracian  by  race,  who  had  been  a  soldier  in  the  Ro¬ 
man  army,  and  who,  as  a  prisoner  of  war,  was  sold  for  a  glad¬ 
iator,  being  one  of  them,  persuaded  some  70  of  the  most  dar¬ 
ing  to  make  an  escape,  pleading  that  a  forceable  attempt  at 
liberty  was  better  than  to  be  butchered  at  the  amphitheatri- 
cal  spectacle ;  and  arming  his  fellow  adventurers  with  cud¬ 
gels  of  wood  and  knives,  they  forced  the  guards  and  escaped 
to  Mt.  Vesuvius.” 

Page  292,  Note  42:  “With  scarcely  more  than  30  men  of 
his  own  fortune  they  forced  themselves  out  of  Capua.” 

Page  293,  Note  43  :  “They  first  compelled  their  best  com¬ 
rades  to  leave  Capua  and  seizing  weapons  suitable  for  fight¬ 
ing,  safely  got  away ;  and  luckily,  as  they  got  hold  of  mores, 
they  threw  away  their  old  weapons  as  barbarous,  unworthy 
the  dignity  of  gladiators.  ”  Cicero  says,  speaking  of  Sicily: 
“  In  the  insurrection  of  Spartacus  there  were  very  few  at 
first.  But  what  evil  would  those  fellows  not  have  done  in  so 
small  an  island  1  ”  Floras,  speaking  of  their  numbers,  says 
Spartacus,  Crixus  and  (Enomaus  broke  out  of  the  ring  school 
of  Lentulus  and  with  scarcely  more  than  30  men  of  their  own 
sort,  escaped  from  Capua.  ” 

Page  294,  Note  46,  Same  as  note  43  at  the  close. 

Page  294,  Note  47:  “Plutarch  says:  ‘People  generally 

call  it  the  Spartacan  war'  and  Floras,  who  designates  the 
Sicilian  labor  war  the  war  of  the  slaves,  sets  the  caption 
‘  Spartacan  war,  ’  which  brings  this  Italian  insurrection  like¬ 
wise  among  the  great  wars  of  Rome,  like  the  Hannibalic,  the 
Sertorian  and  the  Mithridatic  wars,  in  which  a  single  pesron 
exhibits  such  superior  qualities  as  to  constitute  the  soul  of 
the  conflict,  that  it  takes  its  name  from  him.  In  fact,  we 
find  other  weighty  references  to  this,  among  the  Roman  au¬ 
thors.  Augustin,  in  De  Civitate  Dei,  III.,  26;  Ampelius, 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES . 


605 


Book  of  Memory,  chapters  41  &  45,  calling  it  the  servile  war: 
Caesar,  Gallic  Wars,  book  I.,  40,  calling  it  the  slave  insurrec¬ 
tionary  war ;  Frontin  ;  Orosius :  ‘  This  war  of  the  runaways 
or  as  I  may  more  correctly  call  it,  war  of  the  gladiators.’ 
But  in  all  these  appellations  the  main  idea  is  expressed,  that 
the  glory  of  the  strikers,  or  insurrectionists,  must  not  come 
down  to  posterity  except  as  the  hated  and  despised  leaders.” 

Page  294,  Note  48  :  “  Slaves  are  held  subject  to  the  power 
of  their  masters,  and  this  is  in  fact  tlie  power  recognized  by 
the  jus  gentium,  (law  common  to  nations);  for  we  are  to  un¬ 
derstand  that  with  all  citizen  and  respectable  classes,  owners 
of  slaves  have  the  power  either  to  kill  them  or  permit  their 
existence.” 

Page  295,  Note  51:  “Seventy-four  companies  were  killed 
by  the  gladiators.”  Florus  remarks  that:  “The  general 
thought  nothing  of  what  was  going  to  happen,  when  all  at 
once  his  camp  was  burst  into  by  a  sudden  onset.  ”  Scham- 
bach  remarks:  “All  information  agrees  that  the  fighters 
were  immensely  inferior  in  numbers.  Frontin  even  bears 
witness  (I.,  v.,  21),  that  there  were  onty  74  in  the  battle, 
lie  says  :  ‘  But  he  also  from  the  other  side,  so  terrified  Clo- 
dius  that  his  gladators  killed  some  74  companies  of  his  sol¬ 
diers.  ’  The  attack  succeeded  perfectly.  The  Roman  soldiers 
who  had  been  hastily  gathered,  fled  from  the  battle  ground 
leaving  their  camp  with  all  their  baggage,  which  became  the 
booty  of  the  insurgents.  ” 

Page  297,  Note  53,  Florus  says  :  “  His  force  gathering  in 

numbers  every  day  until  it  assumed  the  proportion  of  a  real 
army;  and  he  made  shields  from  the  vines  and  the  skins  of 
the  cattle,  and  forged  swords  and  javelins  out  of  the  iron  of 
workhouse  prisons.  ”  Appian  adds:  “  Spartacus  gathered 
very  many  soldiers  and  soon  had  an  army  of  70,000.  He  forged 
arms  and  collected  the  implements  of  war.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  inhabitants  of  the  cities  sent  against  him  two  consuls  with 
an  army  of  two  complete  legions.” 

Page  297,  Note  54:  “As  he  shared  the  spoils  of  battle  equally, 
his  army  became  numerous ;  and  the  first  commander  sent 
against  him  was  Varinius  Glabros,  and  with  him  one  Publius 
Valerius.  They  did  not  carry  out  the  tactics  of  a  regular 
army  but  thought  only  to  proceed  with  all  haste  possible,  the 
Romans  not  looking  upon  it  as  a  war  but  thought  they  were 
merely  dealing  with  a  robber  and  his  unorganized  hordes. 
They  were  allured  into  a  weak  spot  and  defeated.  The  horse 
of  Varinius  was  seized  by  Spartacus  himself,  Varinius  escap¬ 
ing,  although  the  Roman  general  was  well-nigh  taken  pris¬ 
oner  by  the  gladiator.” 

Page  297,  Note  55:  “And  I  may  drop  a  thought  upon  that 
Mars-like  warrior,  Spartacus  ;  though  every  scrap  plies  its  de- 


800 


APPENDIX. 


ceptive  art  in  making  him  a  vagrant.”  Tacitus  says:  “Never 
contumely  toward  the  Roman  people  brought  Caesar  greater 
pain  than  did  this  deserter  and  robber — not  even  Spartacus, 
after  so  many  disasters  of  Rome’s  consular  armies,  who  raged 
and  burned  up  Italy  with  impunity.” 

Page  399,  Note  57,  Remarks  of  Schambach:  “We  have 
most  of  all  to  regret  the  loss  of  the  greatest  work — that  of 
Sallust — bearing  the  title  of  1  Books  of  History  of  the  Roman 
People.’  Sallust  was  not  only  the  person  nearest  in  date  to 
the  events,  among  Roman  authors  who  wrote  a  history  of 
this  war,  but  he  was  also  the  most  trustworthy  in  his  histori¬ 
cal  tracings.  On  account  of  his  position  in  the  state  and  his 
far-reaching  communications  he  was  in  condition  to  give  the 
best  information ;  and  he  combined  a  characteristic  for  de¬ 
scription,  with  method  and  criticism.  His  histories  were 
very  thorough.” 

Page  299,  Note  58:  “  In  a  disastrous  conflict  Varinius  lost 

his  troops,  his  baggage  and  his  horse,  even  his  praetorian  bun¬ 
dles  with  the  rods  and  battle-axe.” 

Page  300,  Note  59:  “He  not  only  seized  the  mountains 
around  Thuria  but  the  city  of  Thuria  itself ;  and  forbade  mer¬ 
chants  bringing  gold  and  silver  into  camp,  using  only  iron 
and  bronze  and  discountenencing  other  things.  Piles  of  wood 
were  brought  and  worked  up  for  the  coming  expedition  and 
large  quantities  of  plunder  were  accumulated.  By  exchange 
among  the  outstanding  Romans,  and  with  the  booty  which 
came  into  their  hands,  they  became  a  power.” 

Page  300,  Note  60 :  “  After  Spartacus  had  drawn  to  himself 

all  the  elements  of  revolt  offered  by  Campania,  he  turned  to¬ 
ward  other  regions.  We  are  unforunately,  not  instructed 
with  exactness  regarding  the  route  he  took ;  nevertheless  by 
employing  the  Vatican  fragments  of  Sallust  which  agree  with 
Orosius,  we  may  conclude  that  he  first  marched  toward  the 
peninsula,  on  the  coast  of  the  Adriatic,  whence  he  turned  in 
southerly  direction  and  came  to  Lucania.  At  any  rate  the 
fragments  show  that  Varinius  of  whom  we  shall  speak  more 
as  we  proceed,  confronted  the  revolters  at  Picenum.  On 
this  march  he  took  Annii  Forum  and  perhaps  Avella,  whose 
inhabitants  displayed  a  feeling  against  his  offer  of  protection. 
It  is  perfectly  certain  that  the  slaves  pursued  their  course 
with  fire  and  murder.” 

Page  301,  Note  64:  “Not  only  are  unions  restored  which 
the  senate  suppressed,  but  others,  new  and  innumerable,  are 
trumped  up  out  of  all  the  dregs  of  the  city.” 

Page  301,  Note  65 :  “  During  the  consulate  of  L.  Julius  and 

M.  Marius,  noted  by  Cicero,  the  unions  were  suppressed  by  a 
law  of  the  senate.” 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


607 


Page  301,  Note  66:  “That  not  only  the  ancient  unions,  but 
others,  innumerable,  and  entirely  new  ones,  should  be  created 
by  a  gladiator.” 

Page  302,  Note  67  :  “  Concerning  the  restoration  of  the  old 

and  the  institution  of  new  unions ,  which  he  (Cicero)  says,  are 
created  out  of  the  dregs  of  the  city.” 

Page  302,  Note  69  :  “  For  which  cause  the  conscription  may 

be  instituted ;  and  I  have  already  explained  as  to  which  unions 
this  law  applied.  In  this  matter  I  ought  to  observe  two  points: 
first  that  when  slaves  belonged  to  the  unions  they  should  not 
be  considered  as  being  in  the  unions  of  mechanics;  since  I  do 
not  think  that  these  admitted  slaves.  But  it  was  those  de¬ 
voted  to  religion.  Therefore,  the  law  of  Clodius  must  be  re¬ 
garded  as  having  effect  only  in  the  city  of  Rome,  as  Cicero 
says  :  ‘Also  unions  created  out  of  the  dregs  of  the  city’ — 
those  which  Clodius  conscribed  and  organized  into  companies 
in  the  forum.” 

Page  302,  Note  70,  “  Golden  and  gilded  things  are  luxuries 

which  we  know  Spartacus  prohibited  from  his  camps;  for  no 
soldier  was  allowed  either  gold  or  silver.  This  shows  how 
much  nobler  than  ours  were  the  souls  of  our  runaway  slaves.” 

Page  303,  Note  72  :  “  Certain  feeble  glances  are  brought  to 

mind  upon  the  constancy  of  women,  the  inter  cession  of  their 
prayers  and  the  fine  sentiment  of  the  breast  in  cases  of  im¬ 
prisonment.  Sometimes  the  tedium  of  long  and  impatient 
confinement  is  thus  assuaged  ;  and  it  comes  to  great  use  in 
binding  together  the  souls  of  states,  as  in  cases  where  girls, 
even  of  noble  parentage  are  wanted  to  comfort  those  held  as 
hostages.  Nor  do  men  put  aside  their  counsel  or  neglect 
their  answers.  We  have  as  examples,  Veleda,  who  was  held 
high  for  her  predictions  and  her  method  of  worship  among 
the  G-ermans.  But  there  were  also  Aurinia  and  very  many 
others  who  long  ago  were  venerated.  They  did  not  fawn  or 
descend  to  superficial  adulation  before  the  goddesses.” 

Page  304,  Note  77:  “Spartacus  made  an  avenging  sacri¬ 
fice  of  400  of  the  Roman  prisoners,  to  the  ghost  of  the  dead 
Crixus.  Having  120,000  foot  soldiers  he  thought  to  march 
on  Rome.  Making  a  bonfire  of  all  unserviceable  things  of  the 
expedition,  tying  all  of  the  prisoners  and  slaughtering  the 
beasts  of  draft  in  order  to  render  the  army  light  and  easy  to 
manage,  and  many  deserters  from  the  Romans  offering  them¬ 
selves,  he  took  them  in.  The  consuls  straightway  coming 
to  the  rescue  against  him  in  the  country  of  Picenum,  he 
fought  and  beat  them  in  great  battles  at  every  hand.”  Julius 
Obsequens  says :  *  ‘  From  Capua,  they  tell  us,  comes  a  hor¬ 
rifying  clamor — a  hundred  thousand  men  destroyed  in  the 
Italian  civil  war !  ” 

Page  305,  Note  78.  Granier’s  remarks:  “Spartacus  who 


608 


APPENDIX. 


was  a  man  whose  heart  was  above  his  condition  had  only  one 
idea :  he  wanted  to  get  to  Gaul,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alps, 
and  once  there,  his  wish  was  to  have  every  one  return  to  his 
own  country.  The  military  manoeuvres  of  the  consuls  and 
the  insubordination  of  his  comrades  prevented  the  realization 
of  his  desire  ”  Schambach  says  :  “Floras  however,  can  be 
excused,  as  giving  a  useful  tinge  to  the  subject,  where  he  says, 
speaking  of  the  leaders  of  one  of  the  Sicilian  wars:  ‘We 
should  hold  in  mind  that  the  disasters  were  great.’  But  peo¬ 
ple  were  not  content  with  simply  making  silence  cast  oblivion 
over  Spartacus ;  they  even  smeared  public  opinion  of  him  by 
means  of  invented  misdeeds,  and  brought  his  name  down  as 
a  term  of  contempt  and  abuse.  And  even  men  like  Cicero 
and  the  elder  Pliny  are  not  entitled  to  remain  free  from  this 
opinion  regarding  them.  But  we,  who  have  no  cause  to  re¬ 
gard  Spartacus  as  a  terrible  enemy  to  be  held  in  dismay, 
have  a  duty  to  perform  in  exhibiting  his  personality  in  its 
correct  light  and  thus  redeem  it  from  an  undeserved  blame. 
Drumann  says:  “  Nature  had  created  him  to  be  a  hero  and 
a  ruler  by  endowing  him  with  wisdom,  courage,  love  of  lib¬ 
erty  and  moderation.  These  caused  him  to  stride  in  advance 
of  his  companions.  He  brought  unconquerable  Rome  to  fear 
and  trembling  when  he  broke  his  chains ;  though  all  he  de¬ 
sired  was  freedom.  The  cruelty  of  his  unbridled  hordes  is 
not  to  be  attributed  to  him,  nor  charged  to  his  reckoning,  so 
far  as  it  was  not  directed  against  their  oppressors ;  it  was  only 
to  the  Romans  who  played  their  part  against  his  manhood, 
those  whom  he  prevented  from  nailing  him  to  the  cross,  that 
he  knew  no  mercy.  He  also  remained  in  the  resolve  to  act  a3 
for  himself,  for  those  who  fell  victims  of  Rome.  He  did  not 
wish  to  destroy  Rome,  because  he  desired  nothing  that  was 
impossible.  The  prophecy  of  his  Thracian  wife  regarding  his 
forthcoming  greatness  did  not  dazzle  him.  But  the  slaves 
confused,  frustrated  and  baffled  his  plan.” 

Page  306,  Note  79  :  “  (Enomaus  had  already  fallen  in  bat¬ 
tle.”  Schambach  says:  “This  (Enomaus  must  have  been 
killed  early.  Crixus,  who  appears  as  the  next  in  command 
after  Spartacus,  played  his  part  for  a  longer  time.” 

Page  306,  Note  80  :  “  Q.  Arrius,  the  praetor,  killed  Crixus 

the  general,  together  with  20,000  of  his  troops.”  Appian 
says  :  “  Crixus  who  was  the  other  commander,  having  un¬ 

der  him  30,000  men,  was  met  (by  Arrius),  at  the  foot  of  Mt. 
Garganus  and  defeated;  himself  and  two-thirds  of  his  army 
being  destroyed.  Spartacus,  the  other  commander,  was  in 
consequence  hindered  from  carrying  out  his  intention  of  cross¬ 
ing  the  Appenine  mountains,  and  so  moved  toward  the  Alps 
in  the  direction  of  Gaul,  pursued  by  the  Roman  consul.”  Sal¬ 
lust  so  far  as  can  be  made  out  of  the  broken  scrap,  says  • 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


609 


“  The  rage  of  the  conflict  was  powerful.  Forgetting  the  body 
lacerated  with  gashes,  and  half-alive,  some  of  them  fought 
wickedly  while  others  on  the  house  tops  hurled  down  fire 
upon  the  enemy.  Many  slaves  of  the  place  who  had  enrolled 
themselves  in  the  love  of  liberty  as  allies,  secretly  stole  things 
from  their  masters  as  they  set  themselves  at  liberty  and  no¬ 
body,  holy  or  wicked,  was  spared  the  anger  and  servile  re¬ 
vengefulness  of  the  barbarians ;  deeds  were  these  which  Spar- 
tacus  was  unable  to  hinder  though  he  sent  messengers  in  haste 
and  with  many  entreaties.”  Again  Sallust  says :  “In  a  few 
days  the  faith  of  our  troops  began  to  augment  and  the  force 
to  increase  unexpectedly.  Varinius  moved  incautiously  on 
his  prey  which  was  in  view,  and  fell  into  a  new  ambush  like 
the  others,  and  his  soldiers  suffered  a  shock.  He  however, 
led  them  up  to  the  camps  of  the  revolters.  With  quick  step 
they  silently  advanced  but  not  in  such  self-conscious  splen¬ 
dor  as  they  had  hitherto  assumed.  Again  on  the  other  hand, 
the  slaves,  it  was  perceived,  were  quarreling  among  them¬ 
selves  and  were  at  the  point  of  sedition ;  for  Crixus  and  his 
Gauls,  together  with  the  Germans  were  anxious  to  offer  battle 
while  Spartacus  opposed  it.” 

Page  307,  Note  81 :  “  He  also  tore  to  shreds  the  consular 

forces  under  Lentulus,  in  the  Appenines;  and  under  Oaius 
Cassius  at  Mutina.” 

Page  307,  Note  82 :  “  Their  numbers  rose  so  that  at  last  he 
brought  to  bear  against  the  Romans  as  many  as  40,000  men.” 
Note  of  translator:  This  absurd  remark  attributed  to  Velle- 
jus  Paterculus  is  a  false  statement  of  an  early  amanuensis; 
for  the  real,  and  undeniably  correct  figure  actually  given  by 
Paterculus  was  300,000 ;  see  pp.  324-5, -and  notes  122,  124. 

Page  308,  Note  83 :  “  Being  driven  by  him  and  dispersed  hi 

flight — be  it  said  to  our  shame — the  enemy  retired  to  the  far¬ 
ther  side  of  Italy.” 

Page  308,  Note  84:  “  On  the  route  he  met  and  crushed  two 
consular,  and  two  praetorian  armies  and  arrived,  fighting  and 
always  victorious,  at  the  Po,  whose  waters  overflowing  its 
banks,  debarred  his  progress.”  Sallust  remarks :  u  M.  Tre- 
quius,  having  scarcely  enough  troops,  could  hardly  escape 
being  injured.  But  Varinius,  so  long  as  his  force  was  pressed 
upon  by  the  insurgents  and  rendered  weak-spirited  by  the 
odds  against  him,  ordered  his  men  with  a  severe  threat,  not 
to  fall  back  and  encouraged  them  to  rally  by  means  of  sig¬ 
nals  ;  and  those  who  lagged  he  lowered  to  the  rank  of  militia 
with  anathemas  of  disgrace.  His  commissary  C.  Thoranius” 
(  Here  the  scrap  is  so  broken  as  to  be  no  further  intelligible). 

Page  308,  Note  85 :  “  He  ordered  the  prisoners  ( Roman) 

to  fight  each  other  as  gladiators  with  weapons,  in  celebration 
of  the  funeral  and  to  the  honor  of  the  immortal  spirits  of  the 


610 


APPENDIX. 


dead  leaders ;  plainly  as  if  to  resuscitate  a  gone-by  abomina¬ 
tion  and  revive  the  old  funereal  function  of  the  gladiatorial 
wake.” 

Page  309,  Note  89:  “0.  Cassius  the  proconsul,  and  the 

praetor  Cneus  Manlius,  continued  the  war  against  Spartacus 
but  were  defeated.” 

Page  310  Note  92 :  “  Therefore  the  two  consuls  joined  their 
forces  on  the  plains  of  Piceno,  and  attacked  him  both  to¬ 
gether.  But  here  again  Spartacus  raged  against  them  and 
defeated  them  with  great  loss.” 

Page  310,  Note  95 :  “  He  did  not  dare  to  march  to  the  city.” 

Page  311,  Note  96 :  “  At  last  with  all  the  forces  at  his  com¬ 

mand  he  marched  against  the  Thracian  gladiator.”  Transla¬ 
tor’s  note.  According  to  law,  Crassus,  being  the  consul  was 
commander-in-chief  of  all  the  forces  recently  returned  from 
Spain  and  Asia. 

Page  311,  Note  97 :  “  There  happened  an  affair  on  a  gigan¬ 
tic  scale.  Steadily  they  found  allies  of  their  own  class,  be¬ 
sides  many  farmers — men  of  a  tough  and  pernicious  sort.” 

Page  311,  Note  98:  “  Spartacus  the  leader  of  the  runaway 
slaves,  was  able  with  his  500  robbers  to  perpetrate  enough 
of  evil.” 

Page  312,  Note  101 :  “  The  war  had  already  been  raging 
three  years  and  was  becoming  more  fearful  and  the  gladia¬ 
tors  more  disdainful  in  power  and  spirit.  When  the  vote  for 
new  consuls  was  about  to  be  taken  candidates  were  tardy 
in  coming  to  hand,  as  they  would  have  to  be  commanders. 
At  length  Licinius  Orassus,  well  known  by  family  and  wealth 
among  the  Romans,  manifested  a  willingness  to  assume  com¬ 
mand  and  with  six  fresh  legions  bore  away  against  Sparta¬ 
cus.” 

Page  313,  Note  104:  “  The  Roman  general  only  intended  to 
invade  Latium,  not  daring  to  risk  a  battle  with  the  terrible 
gladiator,  and  was  content  to  harass  and  rendor  him  misera¬ 
ble,  with  his  lieutenants,  who  were  invariably  beaten  when¬ 
ever  they  ventured  to  come  to  battle.” 

Page  315,  Note  108:  “Immediately  choosing  one  out  of 
every  ten  from  the  whole  lot  of  those  who  had  been  defeated 
they  were  condemned  to  death  and  destroyed.  This  was  re¬ 
gardless  as  to  which  one  the  lot  fell  upon;  for  every  soldier 
in  the  army  who  was  beaten  was  called  up  and  the  tenth  of 
the  whole  number  chosen.  The  total  number  enrolled  was 
about  4,000,  no  one  escaping.  No  matter  how  this  was  con¬ 
sidered,  the  thought  of  defeat  became  one  of  terror  and 
straightway  Crassus  fell  upon  the  myriads  under  Spartacus 
and  his  disdainful  gladiators,  with  these  newly  invigorated 
men,  and  drove  them.”  Remarks  of  the  commentator  Thir- 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


611 


sins :  “  ‘  He  kills  those  who  were  chosen  by  lot.  with  clubs. 

I  think  it  should  read:  ‘He  kills  those  led  out.5  Concern¬ 
ing  the  severe  military  discipline  of  Crassus,  we  must  reflect 
that  it  was  in  the  case  of  the  two  legions  of  Mummius  who, 
contrary  to  the  orders  of  the  consul,  had  dared  to  attack  the 
enemy  under  Spartacus  and  who  had  been  defeated.  Four 
hundred  of  those  who  had  been  the  first  to  take  to  their  heels 
were  led  forth,  after  being  drawn  by  lot.  This  ancient  man¬ 
ner  of  punishment  by  making  them  kill  each  other,  and  which 
had  long  since  fallen  into  disuse,  was  resuscitated  by  Crassus.” 

Page  315,  Note  109  :  “  Defeating  him,  he  smartly  followed 

him  to  the  sea,  where  he  ( Spartacus)  was  to  cross  over  into 
Sicily.  Here  Crassus  set  to  work  and  threw  up  a  breastwork 
and  an  intrenchment.” 

Page  316  Note  111:  “About  the  same  time  the  gladiators 
forced  themselves  into  the  town  of  Praeneste  and  endeavored 
to  break  into  the  garrison  of  the  army  which  here  held  the 
munitions  of  war,  and  spread  terror  among  the  people ;  for 
it  started  amidst  these  a  desire  to  reenact  the  old  scenes  of 
Spartacus;  and  not  much  later  a  naval  defeat  was  sustained. 
It  was  not  a  war,  for  all  this  was  in  a  time  of  profound  peace 
but  Nero  had  ordered  the  fleet  to  return  to  Campania  on  a 
certain  day,  taking  no  notice  of  the  nets  of  the  sea.  The 
governors  therefore,  inasmuch  as  the  sea  thronged  with  pi¬ 
rates  who  had  their  head-quarters  in  Formiae  (Mola  de  G-aeta), 
and  were  strong  in  Africa  as  well  as  in  Miseni,  which  they 
had  taken,  sent  war  boats  with  three  pairs  of  oars  and  a  large 
number  of  smaller  vessels  everywhere  along  the  Cumanian 
shores.” 

Page  317,  Note  113:  “  L.  Metallus  the  praetor,  prosperously 
carried  on  a  warfare  in  Sicily.” 

Page  318,  Note  115 :  “  So  great  was  the  terror  which  he 

(Spartacus)  had  inspired,  that  Crassus  undertook  to  shut  him 
up  in  the  peninsula  of  Rhegium  by  a  breastwork  and  ditch 
some  45  miles  long !  The  chief  of  the  slaves  manifested  pro¬ 
found  contempt  for  this  immense  work,  as  well  as  for  his  en¬ 
emies,  who  did  not  dare  to  attack  him  in  the  front.  There¬ 
fore,  when  the  provisions  began  to  fail,  he  broke  down  a  part 
of  the  breastwork  during  a  stormy  night,  forced  the  lines  of 
the  Romans  and  manoeuvred  freely  in  Lucania  where  he  ex¬ 
terminated  the  troops  of  the  two  lieutenants  of  Crassus  who 
had  the  temerity  to  molest  him  in  his  retreat.” 

Page  318,  Note  116:  “Spartacus,  relinquishing  his  inten¬ 
tion  to  give  battle  with  his  entire  command,  ordered  his  cav¬ 
alry  to  harass  and  teaze  the  besiegers  as  much  as  possible, 
by  continually  attacking  them  of  a  sudden.  He  broke  into  the 
defenses  of  Crassus  and  burned  them,  accomplishing  the  de* 
struction  of  much  difficult  work.  He  hung  a  Roman  prisoner 


612 


APPENDIX. 


in  the  open  space  between  the  two  armies,  showing  his  owr. 
jnen  by  plain  view  that  they  were  not  to  disobey  orders.  He 
threw  fagots  and  wood  bundles  into  the  ditch  and  escaped.” 

Pag^  319,  Note  117  :  “  The  people  in  the  city  of  Rome,  on 

inquiry,  learning  the  escape  of  Spartacus  from  the  blockade 
and  reflecting  upon  the  length  of  this  war  with  the  gladiator, 
sent  word  to  Pompey  to  return  with  his  army,  from  Spain, 
writing  him  that  the  affair  had  become  a  great  and  difficult 
work.  Since  the  election  which  created  Crassus  consul,  he 
had  kept  back  the  rumors  of  the  war  with  Spartacus  from 
the  knowledge  of  Pompey  and  made  every  possible  turn  to 
get  Spartacus  into  his  hands.  Spartacus  knew  that  negoti¬ 
ations  were  going  on  for  the  assistance  of  Pompey.”  The 
French  Dictionary  says  :  “Crassus  wrote  to  the  senate  ask¬ 
ing  that  Pompey,  then  about  to  return  from  Spain,  be  sent 
to  his  assistance ;  likewise  for  the  aid  of  Lucullus,  who  was 
about  to  return  from  Asia.  He  however,  soon  regretted 
this  step,  and  sought  every  measure  possible  to  terminate  the 
war  himself,  so  that  he  might  enjoy  all  the  honor.” 

Page  319,  Note  118,  Remarks  of  Frontin,  quoting  Livy: 
“  ‘  Thirty-five  thousand  armed  soldiers  of  the  insurgent  slaves 
who  were  defeated  by  Crassus  were  killed  in  this  battle,  to¬ 
gether  with  their  generals,  Castus  and  Gannicus, ’  so  says  Livy 
and  the  Romans  recaptured  5  eagles,  26  ensigns  and  much 
plunder,  among  which  were  the  praetorian  fasces.” 

Page  320,  Note  119:  “Crassus  had  in  the  war  of  the  glad¬ 
iators,  at  Catana,  built  a  couple  of  palisade-like  intrenchments 
that  walled  the  camps  of  Spartacus  from  his  own  army.  In 
the  night,  Spartacus  set  his  army  in  motion  while  the  prae¬ 
torian  guards  remained  on  high  ground  in  their  camps,  in  or¬ 
der  to  deceive  the  Romans.  He  thus  led  out  all  his  force  and 
going  to  the  foot  of  the  mountains  they  all  met  at  a  place  in¬ 
dicated  in  advance.  The  cavalry  was  attacked  by  L.  Quinc- 
tio  and  the  part  under  Spartacus  was  drawn  off  so  as  to  frus¬ 
trate  a  battle  with  him.  The  other  part  consisting  of  Gauls 
and  Germans  who  had  been  in  a  faction  against  their  head 
leader  and  who  were  commanded  by  Castus  and  Gannicus, 
were  allured  into  an  attack  (upon  Quinctio),  by  his  pretend¬ 
ing  to  escape.  In  this  way  the  Roman  drew  up  his  forces 
against  them  and  when  the  barbarians  came  up  he  formed 
his  cavalry  in  squares  and  suddenly  throwing  off  the  mask, 
fell  upon  them  with  a  clamor.  Thirty-five  thousand  armed 
men,  Livy  tells  us,  fell  in  this  battle,  together  with  both  the 
leaders,  Castus  and  Gannicus.”  See  also  last  words  of  Fron¬ 
tin,  above. 

Rage  323,  Note  121:  “  Pompey  was  bending  his  energies 

to  reach  and  seize  Spartacus;  and  the  latter  believed  him  tc 
be  bearing  down  upon  him — even  then,  summoned  to  a  con- 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES . 


613 


sultation  with  Crassus.  Disdaining  to  find  out  by  inquiries 
what  was  going  on,  he  had  the  cavalry  brought  up,  forced 
his  entire  army  through  the  barriers  of  the  intrenchment  and 
escaped  to  Brundusium,  followed  by  Crassus.  Spartacus  how¬ 
ever,  learned  that  Lucullus  had  arrived  in  Brundusium,  hav¬ 
ing;  finished  his  defeat  of  Mithridates.  He  now  became  des- 
perate ;  for  he  knew  that  he  was  about  to  fall  into  the  hands 
of  Crassus,  with  all  of  his  great  army  of  so  many  times  ten 
thousand  in  number.  Spartacus  received  a  wound  in  the 
thigh  by  a  dart,  in  the  great  battle  that  took  place.  Bend¬ 
ing  the  knee  to  the  fight  and  throwing  away  his  shield,  he 
stood  out  upon  the  approaching  enemy  and  in  single,  hand-to 
hand  conflict,  fell,  covered  with  wounds,  leaving  many,  in  a 
circle  around  him,  dead.” 

Page  325,  Note  123,  Schambach  says :  “  Vellejus  is  of  little 
value  to  us.  We  get  nothing  through  him  that  is  not  already 
known,  except  this  statement  regarding  the  numbers,  that  ‘  of 
the  300,000  slaves  engaged  in  the  last  battle,  only  40,000 
were  left.’  ” 

Page  325,  Note  124,  What  Vellejus,  interpolated  by  some¬ 
body,  is  wrongfully  made  to  say :  “  Runaways  from  the  train¬ 
ing  school  for  gladiators,  at  Capua  with  a  leader  named  Spar¬ 
tacus,  escaped,  and  having  seized  swords  in  the  city,  grew  in 
numbers  day  by  day  until  they  became  a  multitude.  With 
traps  and  tricks  they  inflicted  great  damage  to  Italy  and  their 
numbers  rose  so  that  at  the  last  battle  there  were  40,000  in 
line”  (the  original  MSS.  written  by  Vellejus  himself,  had  it 
300,000,  the  number  40,000 surviving )  “who  arrayed  them¬ 
selves  against  the  Roman  army.”  J ohn  Campbell’s  note  is 
as  follows :  “  Although  I  do  not  think  that  I  ought  to  alter 

anything  myself,  I  will  say  that  there  is  a  great  dispute  here, 
among  writers.  Among  those  known  to  hold  a  diversity  of 
opinion  is  Vossius,  the  exceedingly  learned  author  of  a  dis¬ 
sertation  on  translations,  in  his  edition  of  Florus,  book  III., 
chapter  20.”  Again:  “Forty;  Some  others  augment  this 
number  by  a  great  deal.  Eutrope  is  among  those  who  make 
it  smallest  of  all.  He  writes  it  down  as  60,000  men  who 
were  collected  by  Spartacus.  But  Appian  extends  the  num¬ 
ber  to  120,000.  Orosius  who  continued  the  histories  of  Livy 
is  observed  to  hold  a  medium  between  these.  Thus  I  shall 
scarcely  go  wide  of  the  truth  by  stating  it,  with  Vossius,  at 
90,000.  This  is  but  a  paltry  pivotal  number  from  which 
the  writers  vary  one  way  or  the  other ;  since  the  real  edition 
of  Vellejus  gives  it  at  300,000  men.”  Signed  by  Heinsius. 
Remarks  from  the  Hudson  edition,  note  5:  “Vossius  does 
not  dispute  that  the  number  should  be  read  90,000  or  100,000, 
because  the  original  edition  of  Vellejus  reads  300,000  men.” 

Page  327,  Note  128:  “The  battle  became  great  and  obsti- 


614 


APPENDIX 


nate  as  so  many  times  ten  thousand  men  grew  desperate 
Spartacus  was  wounded  in  the  thigh  by  a  javelin  (dart)  and 
bending  his  knee,  threw  off  his  shield  and  plunged  in  upon 
the  approaching  columns  of  the  enemy  until  he  himself  and 
many  more,  fighting  in  a  circle  around  him,  fell.” 

Page  328,  Note  132,  Words  of  Heinsius  on  the  number  of 
men  under  Spartacus  who  fell  in  the  last  battle :  “  Since 

the  main  edition  (ofVellejus)  says  ‘40,000  out  of  the  300, 
000  men.’”  Words  of  Schambach,  the  best  modern  critic, 
see  note  123;  Words  of  Appian:  “The  rest  of  the  army 
fell  into  disorder  and  the  men  were  cut  down  in  great  num¬ 
bers  while  the  loss  on  the  part  of  the  Romans  was  not  very 
great,  reaching  only  to  a  few  thousand  men.  The  dead  body 
of  Spartacus  could  not  be  found.” 

Page  330,  Note  136:  “  The  number  of  killed,  according  to 

Athenaeus,  in  this  and  other  less  important  slave  uprisings 
which  peradventure  have,  or  have  not  come  down  to  us,  rose 
to  something  like  a  million.  He  probably  got  his  figures 
out  of  the  exaggerated  calculations  of  Ctecilius  Calactenus.” 

CHAPTER  Xm. 

Page  334,  Note  1:  “We  search  for  the  place  and  the  na¬ 
ture  of  the  skilled  workmen  in  trade  union's  engaged  in  pub¬ 
lic  affairs  and  government  work,  who  were  tolerated  by  law 
— and  this  is  being  examined  into  so  far  as  may  be — although 
among  authors  this  thing  is  kept  very  dark.” 

Page  335,  Note  6:  “Declares  that  Numa  the  king,  created 
the  third  union,  that  of  the  bronze-workers,  in  the  city  of 

Rome . Numa  the  king,  instituted  the  seventh  union — 

that  of  the  potters.” 

Page  335,  Note  7  :  “  The  Roman  state  originally  granted 

the  trade  organizations,  such  as  did  service  to  its  religious 
functions  and  its  military,  complete  privileges  and  its  imme 
diate  protection,  together  with  a  code  of  self-sustaining  rules 
on  the  communal  plan.” 

Page  335,  Note  8:  “In  very  ancient  times  the  right  of  com¬ 
bining  into  organized  form  was  allowed  to  everybody.” 

Page  336,  Note  10 :  “  In  the  divisions  of  the  trades  and  pro¬ 

fessions  there  were  included  along  with  the  skilled  arts,  the 
flute-players,  gold-workers,  dyers,  shoemakers,  tanners  cur¬ 
riers,  braziers,  potters  and  all  the  others  instructed  to  operate 
under  the  same  system.” 

Page  337:  Note  13  :  “  It  is  worthy  of  remark  here  that  this 

is  the  law  of  Solon,  as  it  relates  to  the  sacred  and  civil  com¬ 
munes.” 

Page  338,  Note  14  :  “Amasis  made  a  law  for  the  Egyptians 
which  made  it  compulsory  upon  all  to  inform  the  governors 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


615 


of  their  districts  as  to  how  they  maintained  themselves,  on 
pain  of  death.  Solon  brought  this  law  to  Athens  and  estab¬ 
lished  it  there.” 

Page  340,  Note  17:  “Although  much  was  destroyed  in 
the  civil  war,  yet  there  were  in  his  possessson,  4,116  slaves.” 

Page  340,  Note  19:  “  Not  only  those  ancient  unions  were 

restored  in  spite  of  the  senate,  but  new  ones,  too  numerous  to 
count  were  enrolled  by  a  gladiator.” 

Page  342,  Note  21:  “To  his  most  virtuous  wife  Numisia, 
with  her  incomparable  love,  with  whom  he  lived  17  years,  11 
months  and  17  days.” 

Page  343,  Note  26  :  “We  are  nevertheless  surprised  to  see 
in  Livy  who  knew  the  old  traditions,  that  the  optimate  class 
denied  the  admission  of  plebeians  as  citizens,  not  because 
they  were  from  conquered  countries,  but  because  they  were 
without  religion  and  without  family.  Now  this  reproach,  un¬ 
merited  at  the  time  of  Licinius  Stolo  and  which  those  living 
contemporaneously  to  Livy,  could  scarcely  understand,  com¬ 
ing  down  from  a  high  antiquity,  reminds  us  of  the  ancient 
organization  of  cities.” 

Page  344,  Note  27:  “Men  of  the  inferior  class  formed  a 
body  or  union  among  themselves.  What  was  meant  by  the 
people  was  the  patrician  class  and  their  clients.  The  plebei¬ 
ans  were  outside  of  this.” 

Page  344,  Note  28:  “This  was  a  renunciation  of  religion. 
Let  us  again  remark  that  a  son  born  without  the  regular  cer¬ 
emonies  and  rites,  was  recognized  an  illegitimate,  the  same 
as  one  born  of  an  adultery;  and  the  domestic,  or  home  reli¬ 
gion  was  not  for  him  at  all.” 

Page  344,  Note  29  :  “  But  such,  and  of  such  a  sort  was  the 

religion  of  the  unions  called  the  sodality  that  they  were  pro¬ 
hibited  by  the  public  laws  in  order  to  be  rid  of  annoyances.” 

Page  344  Note  30  :  “  The  sodalis  (union  of  a  pretended  re¬ 
ligious  nature),  is  a  species  of  wild  thing,  evidently  derived 
from  the  stock  farms  and  farms  of  the  Germans,  and  addicted 
to  their  lupercalian  orgies,  whose  meetings  in  the  forest  were 
instituted  before  the  laws  that  govern  mankind.” 

Page  345,  Note  33:  “  In  a  great  many  places  Cicero  inveighs 
against  P.  Clodius  who  by  his  law,  restored  the  unions,  58 
years  before  Christ,  and  even  caused  the  creation  of  new  ” 

Page  346,  Note  35:  “Be  it  known  that  whoever  commits 
suicide  for  whatsoever  cause,  shall  for  that  offense,  be  denied 
a  burial.” 

Page  346,  Note  36:  “This  deceit  which  used  religion  as  a 
cloak  caused  the  senate  to  withdraw  the  right  of  combina- 
ion.”  Again:  “Under  pretext  of  religion,  those  forming 
illicit  combinations  for  purposes  of  political  power  by  vote 


APPENDIX. 


He 


(the  ballot),  are  not  to  be  included  among  ancient  organiza* 

tions.” 

Page  347,  Note  38:  “We  have  elsewhere  shown  that  the 
Roman  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  touching  the  corporations, 
continued  the  same  dispensations  as  the  Greek  law,  to  such 
an  extent  that  they  appeared  to  G-aius  to  be  a  translation  from 
the  Greek  to  the  Latin.” 

Page  347,  Note  40:  “  Combinations  also  of  quarrelsome  peo¬ 
ple  without  legal  authority,  often  commit  mischief, . on 

account  of  which  the  religious  unions  were  suppressed  by  va¬ 
rious  laws.” 

Page  350,  Note  44 :  “  It  did  not  ameliorate  the  low  estima¬ 
tion  in  which  the  laboring  people  were  held;  even  though 
quite  a  number  of  celebrated  men  belonged  by  birth  or  busi¬ 
ness  to  this  class.” 

Page  357,  INSCRIPTION  AT  LANUYIUM  Completed. 

“  Be  it  ordained  that  whoever  shall  be  created  a  five-years’ 
magistrate  in  this  union,  shall,  from  the  date  at  which  he  so 
became,  as  appears  stamped  on  the  records,  be  free  and  ex¬ 
empt  from  the  duties  of  the  other  members  ;  and  double  as 
much  shall  be  given  him  out  of  all  the  resources,  as  to  the 
others.  So  also  to  the  scribe  or  amanuensis  as  well  as  to  the 
traveling  agent,  once  and  a  half  as  much  is  to  be  paid,  out 
of  the  revenues,  from  the  time  he  takes  the  office.” 

“  Be  it  ordered  that  whoever  conducts  the  office  of  the  quinquen- 
nal  or  five-years’  magistrate  faithfully  and  honorably,  shall 
receive  one  and  a  half  times  that  of  an  ordinary  member,  out 
of  every  revenue ;  that  those  behind  may  be  imbued  with  an 
emulation  and  a  hope,  by  following  in  his  footsteps.” 

“  Be  it  ordered  that  if  any  one  wishes  to  bring  complaint  or 
to  make  any  demands,  let  the  same  be  done  in  a  session  of 
the  union,  that  it  may  be  done  quietly  and  in  the  good  feel¬ 
ing  that  prevails  when  we  are  enjoying  our  banquet  on  stated 
occasions.” 

“  Be  it  ordered,  that  if  any  one  go  from  his  place  over  to  another, 
for  the  purpose  of  sedition  (disturbance),  let  him  be  fined 
the  sum  of  4  sesterces  ( 17  cents  U.  S.  money).  But  if  any 
one  speak  against  another,  using  opprobrious  language,  or 
become  tumultuous,  let  him  be  fined  and  disgraced.  If  any 
person  during  his  term  of  the  five-years’  magistracy  behave 
indecently,  using  contumelious  language  during  the  festivi¬ 
ties,  let  him  be  fined  20  sesterces  (  about  82  cents),  and  be 
disgraced.” 

“  Be  it  ordered  that  the  five-years’  magistrate  of  the  union  shall, 
during  his  term,  behave  himself  with  holiness  on  the  solemn 
days  of  the  feasts,  by  offerings  of  frankincense  and  wine  and 
through  other  offices,  himself  performing  the  funotien  of  lord- 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


617 


priest,  robed  in  white ;  and  on  the  birth- day  of  the  goddess 
AntincB,  he  shall  put  oil  before  the  union  and  in  the  public 
bath,  before  the  banqueting  begins.” 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Page  360,  Note  3:  “The  Order  of  Wood- workers,  divided 
into  bodies  of  100  to  each  union,  was  put  between  the  first 
and  second  categories ;  or  if  we  follow  Dionysius  of  Halicar¬ 
nassus  (  VII.,  59 ),  we  shall  have :  4  two  bodies  of  100  me¬ 
chanics  each,  who  are  wood  and  brass  workers,  engaged  in 
making  the  armaments  of  war.” 

Page  361,  Note  8  :  “  The  union  of  ship  carpenters, .'.  .  .and 

in  the  same  manner  there  were  the  mechanics  in  wood,  of 
the  city  of  Pisaurum.” 

Page  362,  Note  10:  “By  the  law  (senatus  consult),  there 
was  the  school  of  the  unions  of  wood-workers  under  Augusta 
which  was  maintained  at  their  own  expense,  founded  by  T. 
Furius,  the  first  son  who,  at  its  dedication,  gave  10  sesterces 
(about  42  cents)  out  of  his  own  purse,  so  that  they  might 
enjoy  a  banquet  every  year  in  honor  of  his  birth-day  which 
occurred  on  the  12th  of  August.” 

Page  362,  Note  11:  “All  the  unions  were  suppressed,  ex¬ 
cept  a  few  particular  ones,  such  as  he  considered  useful ;  and 
these  were  the  wood-workers  and  the  image-makers.”  Note 
of  Dion  Cassius  :  “  The  ancient  brotherhoods . . .  .being  reg¬ 

ularly  recorded  and  known  to  have  existed  for  a  long  time.” 

Page  362,  Note  12:  “But  a  great  many  unions  had  been 
created  before.  The  first  cause  for  this  was  religion  ;  some 
thinking  this  a  matter  essential  to  their  lives  and  they  used 
these  associations  for  sacred  purposes.” 

Page  362,  Note  13:  “Feigning  religion  and  making  a  false 
show  is  what  caused  the  senate  to  suppress  their  privilege 
of  combination.  These  words  must  be  explained  as  touch¬ 
ing  their  meetings  in  the  temples  on  pious  pretenses,  which, 
however,  was  in  no  wise  against  the  law;  though  they  could 
fraudulently  use  this  clause  of  the  law.” 

Page  363,  Note  14,  at  bottom,  Funck  Brentano  says :  “  It 

was  the  same  in  the  cities  of  Greece ;  this  was  a  condition  of 
their  progress.” 

Page  363,  Note  15:  “  We  have  said  that  during  the  time  L. 

Piso  and  A.  Gabienus  were  consuls,  P.  Clodius  who  was  a 
tribune  of  the  people,  strove  to  restore  thermions  and  to  cre¬ 
ate  new  ones  which  Cicero  says  were  organized  out  of  the 
dregs  of  the  city  of  Rome.” 

Page  364,  Note  19:  “Sacred  to  the  holy  ashes  of  T.  Sillius 
&  T.  Liberius  Priscus,  president  of  the  union  of  wood -workers 


618 


APPENDIX. 


and  five-years’  magistrate  with  the  brotherhood  of  cloth* 
fullers ;  and  also  sacred  to  the  memory  of  Clavidia  his  free 
wife,  who  was  matron  of  the  brotherhood.  Signed  by  C. 
Tullanis,  T.  Sillius  Caris  and  Tiberius  Claudius  Phillippus, 
who  were  presidents  and  five-years’  magistrates  (quinquen- 
nals),  sons  of  these  most  pious  parents.” 

Page  365,  Note  23 :  “  Csesar  suppressed  all  the  unions  ex¬ 

cept  those  of  ancient  origin. 

Page  366,  Note  24:  “In  this  case  the  many  workmen  be¬ 
longing  to  Cato,  or  the  500  belonging  to  Crassus,  would  not 
have  been  able  to  do  anything;  it  was  necessary  for  govern¬ 
ment  to  have  corporations  of  trade  unions  of  the  workmen.” 

Page  367,  Note  27 :  “The  union  of  stonecutters,  organized 
by  (or  perhaps  presided  over  by)  Augurius  Catalinus  Usar,” 

Page  368,  Note  28:  “  An  emancipated  slave  who,  after  his 

manumission,  became  either  a  silversmith  or  an  engraver  and 
die-sinker.” 

Page  370,  Note  34:  “According  to  Budrous,  the  joiners  or 
inside  finishers  (house  finishers  etc.),  worked  in  wood  of  a 
smaller  sort,  and  consequently  they  used  to  work  finishing 
dwellings,  temples,  etc.” 

CHAPTER  XY. 

Page  373,  Note  2:  ‘‘ What  Flavius  Josephus  tells  us  about 
those  works  which  were  several  times  executed  at  Jerusalem, 
either  in  building  the  temple  or  repairing  it,  does  not  leave  a 
chance  for  doubt,  that  the  workingmen,  whether  Jew  or  Si- 
donian,  were  organized  into  trade  unions.  Furthermore  every 
particle  of  doubt  is  removed  by  the  following  passage  where 
he  clearly  speaks  of  the  hierarchy  which  prevailed  among 
the  workmen  and  their  3,200  foremen  who  had  80,000  ma¬ 
sons  at  work  on  the  walls  of  the  temple,  to  wit :  “  Of  the 

neighbor  workingmen  employed  by  David,  there  were  eight 
times  ten  thousand  hewing  ?tone,  whose  work  was  directed 
by  three  thousand  and  two  hundred  foremen.” 

Page  373,  Note  3:  “It  should  be  stated  at  the  start  that 
the  mines  of  iron  come  first;  although  it  is  both  the  best  and 
the  basest  commodity  in  human  use.” 

Page  373,  Note  4 :  “  Statue  to  the  honor  of  the  most  pious 

Volcanus,  erected  by  (or  at  the  instance  of)  T.  Flavius 
Florus,  who  was  priest  of  the  Sun-god.  It  is  of  marble, 
for  the  union  of  sling-makers  and  the  union  of  iron-workers.” 

Page  373,  Note  5.  The  Arundelian  slab  is  not  so  old  asNuma 
but  it  embraces  time  remotely  anterior  to  him.  Its  authen¬ 
ticity  is  subscribed  to  by  Bockh.  The  passage  quoted  seems 
to  speak  of  women  who  combed  their  hair  with  toothed  in¬ 
struments  made  of  iron. 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


619 


Page  375,  Note  8:  “  They  forged  swords  and  javelins  out 

of  the  iron  of  their  prisons.” 

Page  377,  Note  10:  “The  sword-makers,  arrow-makers, 
wagon-makers,  water-wheel-makers  and  shinglers.” 

Page  378,  Note  14:  “To  the  honor  of  my  remains  1  C.  Fu- 
rius  and  C.  F.  Lollius,  chief  officers  of  the  union  of  machine- 
makers  ;  let  this  be  enregistered  that  I  desire  and  ask  of  you 
a  sacrifice ;  and  that  the  union  consider  me  worthy  of  a  six- 
do, y  s’  solemnity — this  to  take  place  from  the  Ides  of  March, 
the  fourth  and  on  my  birth-day ;  and  that  as  much  as  four 
dollars  and  thirty-five  cents  be  expended  for  that  purpose. 
Let  the  finest  flowers  be  used,  at  a  cost  of  eighty-seven  and  a 
half  cents.  If  this  request  be  not  punctually  fulfilled,  then 
you  shall  forfeit  double  that  sum  for  funeral  uses,  collected 
by  subscription  ”  (  not  from  the  treasury  of  the  union  ). 

Page  379,  Note  17 :  “  One  searches  in  vain  for  satisfactory 

information.” 

Page  380,  Note  19 :  “  The  government  on  its  own  part,  had 

need,  all  the  time,  of  a  number  and  variety  of  workmen  suf¬ 
ficiently  large  to  execute  its  works.  And  what  mighty  works 
were  those  performed  by  the  Romans!  What  temples,  and 
such  splendid  temples !  What  aqueducts  and  such  mighty 
aqueducts!  What  bridges  and  they  were  magnificent  1 

Page  380,  Note  20:  “  Just  so  the  shoemakers,  whom  Cicero 

calls  the  girdle rs,  to  express  his  contempt,  as  being  no  better 
than  common  people,  formed,  under  Numa’s  categories,  an 
especial  trade  organization.” 

Page  381,  Note  21 :  “  There  was,  m  fact,  the  government. 

It  was  the  true  supporter  of  the  trade  unions.  And  the  en¬ 
terprises  undertaken  by  it  formed  the  only  permanent  man¬ 
ufacture  in  which  the  laboring  people  could  obtain  their  liv¬ 
ing,  or  wages  day  by  day.”  Again,  G-ranier  says  :  “  On  the 

part  of  the  government”  etc.  (see  note  19  above),  “it  was 
indispensable  to  have  unions  of  workingmen;  and  this  is  be¬ 
cause  they  were  constantly  under  the  service  and  pay  of  gov¬ 
ernment  that  the  senate  and  the  emperors  had  them  provided 
for  by  laws.  The  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  which  ordained 
that  the  unions  should  conform  to  the  general  statutes  of  the 
state,  is  therefore,  in  reality  the  first  established  privilege  in 
favor  of  the  working  class  already  organized  at  the  time.” 

Page  382,  Note  23  :  “A  five-years’  magistrate  of  the  unions 
of  wine-curers  of  the  city  of  Rome  and  the  port  of  Ostia.” 

Page  383,  Note  24:  “The  union  of  wine-smokers  put  the 
epitaph  :  ‘  sacred  to  the  memory  of  ’  ” . .  and  Orelli  Adds :  “  I 
have  found  another  union  of  wine-smokers.” 

Page  383,  Note  2G  :  “It  must  be  observed  that  among  the 
great  numbers  of  unions  and  organizations  of  the  arts  at  the 


020 


APPENDIX. 


port  of  Rome,  the  decurians  ( those  of  the  category  of  10,  by 
law  )  were  not  simply  corporations,  but  real  trade  unions.” 

.  Text  of  the  inscription  :  “Sacred  to  the  memory  of  Cneus 
Sentius,  son  of  Cneus  senior,  three  times  the  successful  can¬ 
didate  for  superintendent  of  works  and  buildings,  and  twice 
elected  captain  and  secretary-treasurer  of  the  company  at 
Ostia  the  port  of  Rome  ;  a  man  who  died  while  yet  a  youth.” 
“  This  person  is  the  first  who  is  known  to  have  been  received 
as  a  member  of  a  union  at  ten  years  of  age ;  and  he  in  fact, 
designates  two  men.  He  appears  five  times  admitted  during 
his  youth,  through  the  good  nature  of  managers  of  the  order 
of  boatmen,  and  he  belonged  to  the  good-fellowship  in  the 
order  of  wine-men.  He  was  secretary’s  accounting  clerk  un¬ 
der  the  patronage  of  the  company  and  herald  or  crier  to  the 
unions  of  silversmiths,  traders  and  wine-men.  So  also,  he  of¬ 
ficiates  in  the  bread  supplies  for  the  city  of  Rome,  for  unions 
of  measurers  and  fruiterers,  and  also  for  the  unions  of  light 
and  heavy  boatmen,  split  and  corn-grits  unions  for  furnishing 
food  to  freedmen  as  well  as  the  slaves  belonging  to  the  city, 
for  the  cabriolet- drivers  young  and  old,  the  oil-drivers’  unions, 
and  was  youth  of  the  plays  for  the  fish-hucksters.  Cneus  Sen¬ 
tius  Lucullus  Gfam ala,  a  Clodian,  beloved  of  his  father.” 

Page  385,  Note  30,  Gran ier  says:  “  From  the  earliest  times 
the  slaves  are  found  to  be  apart  from  free  people,  forming  a 
race  by  themselves.  They  were  fed  and  clothed  in  a  manner 
special  and  appropriate.  The  Jews  used  to  pierce  their  ears 
while  the  Greeks  and  Romans  branded  them  on  the  forehead 
whence  the  name  ‘Stichus’  which  became  common  and  gen¬ 
eral  among  the  slaves.  From  Homer’s  time  their  mode  of 
living  was  regulated  and  they  never  ate  bread  made  of 
wheat  flour.” 


CHAPTER  XYI. 

Page  389,  Note  1:  “  To  Titus  Claudius  Esquilius  Severus, 

lictor  to  the  company  of  ten,  under  the  patronage  of  the  union 
of  fishermen  and  divers  and  who  was  three  times  a  five  years’ 
magistrate  of  the  same.  On  account  of  his  meritorious  ac¬ 
tions  two  statues  are  placed  to  his  honor — one  through  the 
gift  of  money  made  by  Aug.  Antonius  at  Rome  and  the  other 
costing  more,  donated  by  the  union  itself,  in  the  sum  of  10- 
000  sesterces,  which  is  placed  at  interest,  the  earnings  to  be 
expended  every  year  on  the  15th  calends  of  Feb.,  his  birth¬ 
day,  in  a  banquet  at  which  eacli  member  shall  have  a  flagon 
of  wine  apportioned  to  him  accordingly  as  he  shall  have  dili¬ 
gently  behaved  in  the  work  of  the  society’s  business  with 
the  boats  under  the  rules  of  the  order  of  fishermen  and  divert 
ot  the  whole  length  of  the  Tiber,  to  whom  the  right  of  or¬ 
ganization  has  been  decreed  by  a  law  of  Rome,” 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


621 


Page  391,  Note  5:  “At  the  elections  of  duumvirs  and  the 
board  of  public  works  of  provincial  cities,  the  trade  unions, 
the  public,  and  what  is  wonderful,  women  also,  when  they 
favored  the  candidates,  voted  for  them.  For  this  purpose 
they  placarded  the  place  as  seen  on  the  walls  of  Pom¬ 
peii  through  a  recent  discovery.” 

Page  395,  Note  20:  “Union  of  hunters  of  Deens  who  fur¬ 
nished  the  amphitheatres  with  wild  beasts.” 

Page  398,  Note  26:  “Oligarchy  of  money,  with  its  concom¬ 
itants  of  pauperism  and  slavery.” 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Page  403,  Note  1:  “In  mirth  and  jollity  to  the  union  of  play 
actors  at  Felan;  second  prompter  of  the  companies  of  10.” 

Page  403,  Note  6:  “The  two  inscriptions  are  remarkable 
which  Gorius  (Etruscans,  I.,  p.  125,  which  is  the  same  as 
Orelli’s  no.  2,447,  and  Muratorius’  nos.  886  and  887),  thinks 
dates  from  A.  D.  212.  In  these  they  hold  that  by  the  word¬ 
ing,  it  is  to  be  understood  that  the  names  of  the  soldiers 
are  taken  from  7  cohorts  (or  from  the  7th  cohort).  They 
are  now  in  the  collection  at  Florence.  An  inhabitant  of  the 
seaport  of  Misenum  arranged  theatrical  plays,  making  actors 
of  the  guards  in  the  praetorian  fleet.  When  Claudius  Gno- 
rimus  was  made  a  superintendent  of  the  board  of  works  he 
organized  a  division  under  one  flag,  and  had  entertainments 
and  diversions  performed  by  the  military  companions  them¬ 
selves.  Among  them  are  to  be  mentioned  these  names  and 
epithets:  archimimus  (first  mimic)  ;  archimimi  Graeci  (Greek 
mimics);  the  clowns,  the  Greek  clowns,  the  Greek  perform¬ 
ers,  the  jesting  dandies  and  the  machinist  or  scene-adjuster. 
All  the  names  of  the  soldiers  appear.” 

Page  404,  Note  9:  “The  unions  of  mimics,  both  in  name 
and  kind  of  association  are  the  same  in  arrangement  as  the 
Greek  communes  of  skilled  workmen  of  the  Dionysian  or¬ 
der,  which  were  exceedingly  numerous  among  the  Greeks.” 

Page  413,  Note  36:  “The  fortune-tellers  whose  tutelary  di¬ 
vinity  is  the  goddess  of  justice  Nemesis  (sun-worship),  the 
same  as  good  fortune.” 

Page  414,  Note  37:  “Very  many  unions  of  comic  actors  are 
being  discovered.” 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Page  416,  Note  5:  “The  freeborn  sons  of  Eumachia,  of  the 
sacred  union  of  cloth-fullers,  who  worked  for  the  state  (or 
public).” 

Page  416,  Note  8:  “The  principal  corporations  of  the  em« 


622 


APPENDIX. 


pire  of  Rome  were  those  of  the  weavers  and  drapers.” 

Page  422,  Note  30:  “Union  of  the  rag-pickers  and  patch- 
pie  cers  of  the  provincial  city  of  Mevaniola.” 

Page  423,  Note  32:  “Similar  laws  which  were  neither  less 
wordy  nor  less  stuffed  with  fawning  language.” 

Page  425,  Note  39 :  “  The  date,  251  years  of  the  union,  was 

written  above,  showing  that  it  must  have  been  founded  at 
that  time.” 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Page  429,  Note  3:  “In  the  rules  of  Diana  and  Antince  and 
of  Esculapius  and  Hygsea.”  Also :  “  In  the  domestic  estab¬ 
lishments  of  the  Caesars  ( from  Caesar  Augustus),  there  were 
many  unions  of  skilled  mechanics.”  Again:  “The  appear¬ 
ance  is  that  there  were  also  sailors.  They  dedicated  the  ‘fam¬ 
ily  ’  of  sailors  as  sacred  to  Minerva.” 

Page  433,  Note  14 :  “  We  do  not  like  to  look  at  the  circus 

performance  from  cushioned  seats.” 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Page  439,  Note  3 :  “  Placed  to  the  memory  of  Aurelius  Ce- 

cilius.  Epictatus  the  student  or  apprentice,  placed  it  to  his 
honor  at  Lyons.”  This  is  an  inscription  commemorating  the 
union  of  collectors. 

Page  442,  Note  10:  “  Tax  collection  of  the  iron  forgers  and 
iron  ore  miners.”  Also:  “  Sacred  to  the  memory  of  Primon 
the  tent  associate,  comrade  of  the  forgers  in  the  iron  mines.” 

CHAPTER  XXL 

Page  445,  Note  2:  “Again,  there  are  certain  unions  at  Rome 
defined  under  the  law  as  sacred,  with  regular  rules  and  by¬ 
laws;  such  as  the  millers  and  bakers;  and  certain  others,  as 
the  boatmen  in  the  provinces.” 

Page  445,  Note  3:  “  P.  Monetius  a  freedman  member,  and 
Philogenes,  a  worker  in  metals. 

Page  446,  N  ote  4 :  “  There  is  shown  on  the  pyramid,  by  let¬ 

ters  engraved  in  the  Egyptian  style,  the  statistics  of  living  for 
the  workmen.  If  I  remember  the  interpreter  rightly,  the  ex¬ 
pense  for  eatables  for  them  alone  was,  for  radishes,  onions, 
and  garlic,  no  less  than  $1,690,000. 

Page  447,  Note  5:  “For  both  on  account  of  the  necessity 
of  burials  and  their  usefulness  in  putting  out  fires,  the  senate 
continued  their  right  to  organize.  For  this  reason,  those  only 
were  prohibited  who  had  ostensibly  gone  into  a  burial  associ¬ 
ation  with  the  real  purpose  of  forming  one  of  incendiaries.” 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


623 


Page  447,  Note  6:  “He  (or  the  senate)  gave  permission  to 
organize,  to  all  the  wine-men,  brothel  keepers,  shoemakers 
and  the  artisans  generally ;  and  ordered  that  the  magistrates 
should  keep  an  eye  upon  them,  seeing  to  it  that  they  main¬ 
tained  their  proper  relations  one  to  another.” 

Page  448,  Note  9 :  “  The  variety,  extent  and  propagation 
of  the  organizations.” 

Page  455,  Note  16  :  “  There  are  unions  of  brotherhoods  of 

eranoi,  allowed  to  combine  by  the  consent  of  the  magistrates 
of  Athens,  with  their  help,  good  will  and  indulgence  toward 
those  that  were  called,  sometimes  the  eranos,  sometimes  the 
thiasos,  and  by  others,  the  commune  or  union  of  the  broth¬ 
erhood,  and  the  union  of  the  thiasotes.” 

Page  456,  Note  17 :  “  Some  of  the  communistic  societies 

are  thought  to  be  for  pleasures  or  enjoyment,  among  which 
are  the  thiasotes  and  eranists.  Some  are  combined  for  the 
purpose  of  performing  sacrifice  to  the  gods.” 

Page  458,  Note  18:  “We  are  all  a  brotherhood  (thiasotes) 
under  this  divinity”  (meaning  the  god  of  love). 

CHAPTER  XXn. 

Page  467,  Note  5:  “  Of  late,  in  order  to  make  thearrang- 

ments  easy,  all  the  between-distances  are  designated,  and  so 
well  learned  as  to  be  in  familiar  use.  So  the  custom  is  to 
drive  down  the  staff  of  the  banners  (vexilla).  One  of  them, 
and  in  fact  the  first  one,  must  be  put  at  the  place  where  the 
general’s  tent  stands ;  another  is  fixed  at  one  side  and  the 
third  at  a  central  point  between  the  lines  toward  which  the 
tribunes  march.  A  fourth  is  put  in  a  position  at  which  the 
legions  are  to  be  stationed.  Then  certain  other  flags  which 
are  red,  although  the  consul’s  banner  is  white,  are  placed  as 
follows :  Among  these  red  flags  some  are  placed  on  the  side 
opposite  the  praetorian  guards.  Sometimes  they  are  fixed  to 
naked  spears  or  lances  driven  into  the  ground,  the  banners 
being  frequently  of  more  than  one  color.” 

Page  470,  Note  10  “These  rudimental  colors  are  the  red, 
the  orange,  the  yellow,  the  blue,  the  indigo  and  the  violet.” 

Page  471,  Note  12:  “  To  finish  the  arrangements  of  the  camp, 
tribunes  find  it  necessary  to  exact  an  oath  from  all,  whether 
freedmen  or  slaves,  and  this  is  done  in  the  following  manner: 
‘  You  solemnly  swear  that  you  will  not  steal  anything  from 
the  camp;  and  moreover,  if  any  one  finds  anything,  that  he 
will  bring  the  same  to  the  general.” 

Page  474,  Note  20:  “Nor  could  the  angry  and  threaten¬ 
ing  aspect  of  things  be  assuaged.  There  was  no  election  ex¬ 
cept  for  members  of  the  board  of  public  works  and  for  trib- 


624 


APPENDIX 


unes  of  the  common  people.  Licinius  and  Sextius  were  re¬ 
elected  tribunes  and  it  was  impossible  to  fill  the  aristocratic 
chair  of  consul;  so  that  there  was  an  interregnum  during  ^ 
period  of  five  years;  for  as  the  plebeian  party  succeeded  in 
restoring  the  two  tribunes,  these  broke  up  the  election  of 
military  tribunes  or  commanders,  and  thus  held  the  city 
for  five  years.” 

Page  475,  Note  22:  “Horatius  had  an  unmarried  sister,  in 
love  with,  and  engaged  to,  one  of  the  three  Curiatii  (antag¬ 
onists  whom  he  killed).  When  he  observed  herein  front  of 
the  gate  of  Capua,  in  tears  and  rending  her  hair  knowing 
by  the  military  cloak  over  his  shoulder  that  it  was  her  dead 
lover  he  became  aroused  by  her  weeping,  being  worse  ag¬ 
gravated  by  the  congratulation  of  the  public  at  his  moment 
of  victory.  These  awakened  the  ferocity  of  the  young 

man’s  soul.  Drawing  his  sword  and  at  the  same  time 
shouting,  he  stabbed  the  girl  through  the  body,  crying: 
‘Hence  with  your  love!  Get  you  gone  to  your  lover!  Go 
down  with  the  dead  men  into  oblivion!  Be  done  with  life 
and  fogret  the  land  of  your  fathers!  Hello,  hangman!  bind 
together  the  hands  which  but  now  were  in  arms  against 
the  power  of  the  Roman  people!’  ”  The  words  of  the  father 
of  Manlius  were:  “Heigh  there,  executioner,  tie  him  to 
the  post!” 

Page  477,  Note  25:  “The  little  toga  was  put  on  the  lictor 
near  the  city  gate  and  when  he  took  it  he  cast  off  his  saga 
and  went  again  into  the  service  of  the  consul.” 

Page  484,  Note  43:  “Flag-bearers  who  carried  banners  and 
colors  in  honor  of  the  gods,  at  the  pageants,  the  festivities 
and  the  games.” 

Page  484,  Note  44:  “Ancient  and  revered  union  of  master 
flag-bearers  at  the  banquets  and  their  numerous  varieties 
extending  from  the  image  and  ensign-bearers  who  are  the 
genus  to  the  standard-bearers  who  are  the  species.” 

Page  484,  Note  45:  “One  will  easily  understand  that  there 
might  have  been  lively  quarrels  or  differences  among  these 
unions  of  shoemakers  and  cobblers — the  one  selling  old 
boots  and  shoes,  the  other  bartering  certain  articles  of  its 
trade  but  in  doing  so,  trenching  upon  the  conditions  pre¬ 
scribed  by  the  rules  and  regulations.  Indeed,  oftentimes 
the  courts  and  tribunals  of  justice  heard  their  grievances 
and  interfered  against  acts  which  they  often  committed,  or 
prevented  their  combats.” 

Page  485,  Note  46:  “Their  banner  was  in  three  colors  di¬ 
vided  from  each  other  by  a  pale  blue  strip,  the  first  divi¬ 
sion  being  red,  with  a  gilt-handled  knife;  the  third  part 
was  gold  with  a  horse  bit  in  red.” 

Page  485.  Note  48:  “At  Clermont,  blood-red  with  a  blade 
of  silver  and  a  gilt  handle.” 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES 


625 


Page  486,  Note  50:  “At  Montferrand  the  shoemakers,  in 
union  with  the  carders,  weavers,  dealers  in  old  junk,  tavern- 

-  keepers  and  masons  carried  a  banner  the  color  of  which  was 
red  and  in  the  center  was  the  virgin  in  silver,  with  the  infant. 
It  was  margined  with  gold.” 

Page  488,  Note  53  :  “  One  may  make  a  very  curiosity-grat¬ 

ifying  study  of  the  part  which  the  military  carpentry  played 
in  the  second  expedition  of  Pepin-le  Bref  in  the  year  761 
against  G-aifre,  duke  of  Aquitania.  At  the  siege  in  which  he 
took  the  city  of  Clermont  he  profited  by  the  experience  of  the 
Lombards,  and  caused  formidable  battering-rams  to  be  slung 
against  the  walls.  These  consisted  of  beams  of  enormous  size 
set  swinging  by  levers,  and  rolling  upon  cylinders  made  to 
oscillate  backwards  and  forwards  by  ropes,  the  impulse  being 
given  by  carpenters  and  skilled  men  who  hurled  iron-headed 
ends  against  the  walls  and  stove  them  to  pieces.  To  this  day 
one  may  observe  the  marks  of  damage  thus  sustained  at  other 
sieges  of  Clermont  and  Montferrand,  A.  D.  1121  and  1126.” 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Page  498,  Note  3  “  In  Epidamnus  there  were  no  artisans  ex¬ 
cept  public  slaves.  Manual  skilled  labor  was  in  consequence 
condemned  and  despised,  and  in  many  cities  even  forbidden 
the  citizens.” 

Page  499,  Note  9:  “Who  is  he  that  is  not  tired  and  dis¬ 
gusted  with  reading  and  writing  of  long  and  irksome  wars 
and  the  motives  that  propel  them.” 

Page  499,  Note  11 :  “  That  sort  which  the  Greeks  call  bur- 

den-bearers,  but  which  we  in  Latin  denominate  drudges.” 

Page  499,  Note  12 :  “  Wherefore  I  plead  and  beseech,  O 

judges,  that  you  see  in  the  true  light  this  work  which  Sextus 
Clodiushas,  within  these  few  days  accomplished.  I  demand 
that  you  look  after  this  man  whom  you  for  two  years,  have 
seen  as  the  minister  or  leader  of  sedition — the  man  who  is 
burning  the  holy  altars  and  the  wealth  of  the  Roman  people, 
blotting  them  from  public  memory  by  his  own  hand ;  a  man 
without  condition,  without  a  faith,  without  hope,  without  a 
home,  without  fortune,  mouth,  tongue,  hand  or  even  life  that 
be  not  smirched  and  polluted  ;  the  man  who  brought  to  dis¬ 
grace  the  name  of  Catulus,  who  consummated  the  ruin  of  my 
house  and  burned  the  home  of  my  brother.” 

Page  500,  Note  14:  ‘‘It  is  very  much  to  be  regretted  that 
so  slender  details  of  them  have  come  down  to  us.” 

Page  500,  Note  15 :  “  One  seeks  in  vain  for  satisfactory 

information.” 

Page  503,  Note  18  :  “  Relating  to  a  thiasos  which  is  an  as¬ 

semblage  of  people  for  purposes  of  drinking.” 


826 


APPENDIX. 


Page  503,  Note  19:  “Polybius  recounts  in  his  Histories, 
( book  20,  chapter  6 ),  that  these  garlands  and  wreaths  were 
in  their  finest  stage  of  effusion  in  Boetia.” 

Page  503,  Note  20:  “  The  thiasos  is  not  an  association  for 

wine  and  drunkenness.” 

Page  506,  Note  25:  u  A  certain  degree  of  satisfaction  and 
of  confidence.” 

Page  510,  Note  37 :  “  Besides  these  smaller  unions  devoted 

exclusively  to  private  objects,  there  were  also  boatmen  and 
dealers  who  had  their  unions  ” 

Page  511,  Note  41:  “  Both  sorts  of  eranos  appear  to  have 

been  mixed  with  the  thiasotes  at  a  very  early  time.” 

Page  513,  Note  46 :  “  Nowhere  were  the  religious  societies 

more  numerous  than  at  the  Piraeus.” 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Page  552  Note  69:  “So  far  as  the  civil  right  is  concerned, 
slaves  are  not  considered  anything ;  not  so  however,  the  nat¬ 
ural  right,  for  in  the  natural  right, all  men  are  equal.”  Again, 
Florentine  says :  “  The  condition  of  slavery  is  provided  for 

by  a  code  of  rights  for  high-born  citizens,  by  which  a  man 
may  be  subjected  to  an  outside  owner  or  master  contrary 
to  nature.” 

Page  553,  Note  70:  “We  come  together  in  our  brother¬ 
hood  and  our  congregation  in  order  that  we  may  walk  and 
work  together  as  it  were  in  prayers  and  deeds.” 

Page  552,  Note  76:  “So  it  seems,  said  he  ( Socrates),  O 
comrades ;  in  all  likelihood  we  ourselves  resemble  the  great 
spirit ;  and  in  the  realm  of  time,  the  mortal  probation,  our 
life  is  the  same  in  stature  and  shape  as  the  immortal  divini¬ 
ties,  but  when  once  fixed  in  our  seats  in  the  newer  form  and 
shape,  forget  not  that  then,  we  are  all  thiasotes  and  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  brotherhood,  under  Eros,  the  God  of  Love.” 

Page  557,  Note  87  “  The  well-nigh  incestuous  liason  of  An- 

tipas  and  Herodias  was  then  and  there  accomplished.” 

Page  569,  Note  109:  “  The  harvesting  was  accomplished  in 

the  following  manner  :  In  the  great  estates  occupying  the 
larger  valleys  and  level  tracts  of  land,  a  machine  is  used  hav¬ 
ing  its  outer  margin  full  of  teeth  and  this  they  force  through 
by  means  of  two  wheels,  and  the  power  of  an  ox  harnessed 
in  thills  behind  (and  pushing  the  machine).  In  this  way  the 
heads  of  the  grain  are  torn  off  and  fall  into  a  trough  attached 
to  the  vehicle.  The  stalks  which  are  left  below  the  heads 
thus  harvested,  they  afterwards  cut  with  a  sickle.”  Palla- 
dius  says  :  “In  the  more  level  parts  of  Gaul  the  following 
apparatus  is  in  use  for  harvesting,  which  does  away  with  the 
labor  of  man  to  such  an  extent  that  an  ox  performs  the  er.- 


TRANSLATION  OF  NOTES. 


627 


tire  task  of  harvesting.  A  cart  or  carriage  is  constructed 
furnished  with  two  small  wheels.  On  this  carriage  is  mounted 
a  square  box  made  of  planks,  with  the  top  larger  in  size  than 
the  bottom.  The  height  of  this  cart-box  is  less  in  front  than 
in  rear.  Here  are  fixed  many  email  teeth,  curved  backwards, 
not  so  thickly  set  but  that  the  grain  can  get  between  them, 
and  arranged  in  such  an  order  that  the  heads  may  enter  above. 
Behind  this  cart  are  two  small  tongues  or  thills,  as  if  the  ani¬ 
mal  were  harnessed  in  a  chair.  Here  the  ox  is  fastened,  his 
head  towards  the  machine,  by  means  of  a  yoke  and  chains; 
and  when  all  is  ready,  he  begins  to  push  the  cart  forward, 
into  the  grain.  Thus  every  head  is  caught  between  these 
teeth  and  torn  from  its  stalk — which  is  left  standing — and 
falls  into  the  box.  The  machine  is  generally  about  the  height 
of  an  ordinary  small  ox  that  propels  it  from  behind.  Thus 
by  a  few  bouts  and  in  a  very  short  space  of  time,  the  entire 
harvest  is  accomplished.  This  machine  is  useful  in  valleys 
aiid  level  fields,  and  in  those  places  where  straw  and  chaff 
are  necessary  for  manure.” 


GREEK  INSCRIPTION 

CORONATION  AT  SYMPOSIUM  OP  A  THIASOS, 

(FACING  AND  INCLUDING  PAGE  463). 

sThk  male  and  female  members  of  this  thiasos  crown  Sratonice, 
daughter  of  Menecrates,  who  was  presiding  officer  for  proph¬ 
ecy  and  predictions  of  the  eranos,  in  the  one  hundred  and 
and  seventy-eighth  year  of  its  existence ;  since  she  was  loyal 
to  the  great  mother  Ceres,  and  to  the  sun-god,  Apollo.  An 
upright  tablet  of  stone  is  engraved  to  her  honor  and  orna¬ 
mented  with  wreaths  and  ribbons,  and  she  is  further  honored 
by  a  public  proclamation  at  the  meeting  in  the  temple  of 
Jupiter.” 


4. 


INDEX 


Abolition,  Aristotle’s  day,  541. 

Abomination,  a  certain  practice. 
538. 

Abraham,  tried  low  form  of  pa- 
triarchisra,  72;  the  God  of,  562. 

Abyss,  or  crater  of  the  brimstone 
lake,  248,  note  3. 

Achaeus,  compared,  167;  chosen 
by  Eunus  as  his  adviser,  209  ; 
his  character,  210  ;  organizes 
an  army  of  slaves,  210;  beats 
the  Romans  often,  214;  lieu¬ 
tenant  general  to  Eunus,  217; 
with  Cleon,  defeats  Hypsaeus, 
217 ;  mysterous  death  of,  228. 

Achaia,  Roman  conquest  of,  210. 

Acknowledgment  honorable,  565 
and  note  106. 

Acragus,  a  state  in  Sicily  214. 

Acrobatic  sports  (Spartan),  535. 

Acropolis,  of  Athens,  126;  of 
Sunion,  142,  note  38. 

Actors,  unions  of  comic,  112;  at 
seaport,  Misenum,  403,  note  6. 

Adad,  Syrian  sun-god,  236. 

Adam  and  Eve,  535. 

Admission,  of  women,  freedmen, 
strangers  and  slaves  to  the  thi- 


asos  and  eranos,  169,  note  10. 

Adrian,  withdrew  slaves  from 
the  old  domestic  tribunal,  365. 

Adoniastes,  a  divinity,  462. 

Adultery,  what  its  equivalents 
were,  344,  and  note  28. 

Advent,  of  Jesus,  493. 

iEdile,  superintendent  of  pub¬ 
lic  works,  403. 

iEgesta  or  Segesta,  a  city,  258. 

JEgis,  protector  of  labor,  474. 

-Elian,  what  he  says  of  the  in¬ 
human  slave-holders,  537. 

A Enator ,  buccinator,  played  the 
shepherd’s  horn,  407,  408. 

2Eon,  great  period  of  time  495. 

iEschines,  orator  of  low  birth, 
101 ;  railed  at  by  Demosthenes 
in  consequence,  543. 

Affection,  strange  tenacity  of, 
for  the  red  flag,  468. 

Africa,  modern  slavery  of,  68  ; 
fame  of  the  ancient  mysteries 
in,  88;  comparative  numbers 
in  northern  parts,  195. 

African,  slave  trade,  280,  note  27. 

Africans  enslaved  by  the  ancient 
Roman  and  Greek  traders,  195. 

Agathodaemoniastes,  462. 

Age,  of  gladiators,  279,  note  5; 


630 


INDEX. 


of  ragpickers  inscription,  425. 

Aged  word,  “red,”  471. 

Ager  Comensis,  423,  424. 

Agtr publicus,  explained,  285-8; 
how  tilled,  287,  443  ;  inimical 
inroads  upon,  288 ;  usurpation 
of,  285 ;  further  explained,  360 
note  4 ;  cultivated  by  the  pro¬ 
letaries,  349 ;  products  of,  car¬ 
ried  to  Rome  by  sea,  440 ;  when 
seized  by  the  landlords,  438. 

Ages,  the  new,  556. 

Agis,  an  ancient  king  of  Sparta, 
115;  labor  insurrection  in  the 
time  of,  115;  vast  murder  of 
Helots  by,  116. 

Agis,  the  Fourth,  531. 

Agitation,  ancient,  against  the 
slave  institution,  141,  note  33. 

Agitator,  a  gladiator,  412  ;  John 
the  Baptist,  557. 

Agony,  of  the  crucifixion,  562. 

Agriculture,  Ceres,  its  protect¬ 
ing  divinity,  469,  see  Ceres. 

Agrarianism,  557;  see  Gracchus. 

Agrarian,  trouble,  213;  law,  474. 

Ag  ricultural,  organizations  rare, 
443;  laborers,  how  treated  526. 

Agriculturists,  found  organized 
in  the  isle  of  Santorin,  456. 

Agiigcntum,  state  of,  in  Sicily, 
214;  slave  owners  of,  405. 

Agyrium,  number  of  its  prop¬ 
erty  owners,  194. 

Alaba,  river,  253  ;  the  battle  of, 
255  ;  Tryphon’s  camps,  263. 

Alatri,  invented  the  siphon,  571. 

Albarius,  one  who  made  plaster 
images,  432. 

Alcestis,  prayer  of,  562,  563. 

Alcibiades,  140. 

Aleuts,  an  American  tribe,  92. 

Alexander,  the  Great,  117. 

Alexandrian,  school,  the  many 
communes,  506. 

All  things  common,  572. 

Alliance,  with  Crassus  in  Asia 
Minor,  241,  242. 

Allobroges,  an  inscription  at  Vi¬ 


enne,  in  the  country  of,  403. 

Allegory — agitation  by,  557. 

Altars,  the  domestic,  428;  mass* 
ive  and  awful,  429 

Altruistic  system,  see  co-opera¬ 
tive  system. 

Amalgamated  societies  for  vict¬ 
ualing  the  Roman  people,  286. 

Amalgamation,  the  political,  of 
Constantine,  551. 

Amanuensis,  435. 

Amasis,  king  of  Egypt,  115;  his 
Solon’s  labor  law,  338,  note  14. 

Amazons,  87,  note  12;  Theseus 
and  his  battle  with,  130. 

Amber,  beads  of,  110,  note  50. 

Ambert,  town  in  Auvergne,  484. 

Ambition,  of  Spartacus,  305;  Pla¬ 
to’s  idea  of,  539. 

Ambuscade,  of  Lycurgus,  102; 
the  Spartan,  104 ;  Crixus  al¬ 
lured  into,  306. 

Americans,  the  aboriginal,  92 ; 
working  classes,  57  ;  republic, 
slaves  of,  77. 

Amphictyonic  council,  80;  ex¬ 
terminating  wars,  81 ;  article 
of  agreement  of  the  brother¬ 
hood,  82. 

Ampliipolis,  battle  of,  107. 

Amphitheatre,  butchered  at  the, 
292  note  41,  332;  cleaners  of, 
395;  wild  beast  hunters  for, 
395  and  note  20. 

Amphorae,  showing  fine  work¬ 
manship,  446 

Amusers,  the  whole  of  chapter 
xvii.;  of  gentlemen,  291,  and 
note  39. 

Anacreon,  Plutarch’s  compari¬ 
son,  544 ;  dithyrambics  of,  454 

Anaglyphs  that  have  survived  for 
2,000  years,  403. 

Analogy,  of  experience  between 
Socrates  and  Jesus,  553,  560. 

Anaxagoras,  Aristotle  followed 
the  ideas  of,  117  ;  wisdom  of, 
156;  laid  the  foundation,  514. 

Ancient  competitive  system,  the 


INDEX . 


631 


ideas  of,  being  dispersed,  vii. ; 
unions  spared,  123,  note  7G; 
lowly,  their  longings  to  cross 
over  to  the  beautiful  river,  353. 

Ancyle,  a  city  of  ancient  Sicily, 
251  and  note  14. 

Anecdote,  of  wild  boar,  475. 

Anglo-Saxon  cult,  London  the 
nucleus,  560. 

Anii  Forum,  300,  note  60. 

Animal,  form  of  primitive  man, 
72 ;  man  but  a  high  type,  525 , 
voracious  and  cruel,  533. 

Animate  vs.  inanimate  tools,  567. 

Annihilation,  495. 

Anthesteria,  spring  sports,  505. 

Anthropologist, suggestion  to,  80. 

Antigenes  and  Python,  219;  a 
dealer  in  slaves,  199 ;  owner 
of  Eunus,  200. 

Antioch,  prophet  of,  199;  Eu¬ 
nus  assumes  the  name  of,  208; 
cradleof  the  brotherhoods,  512. 

Anti-slave  organization,  541. 

Antipas  and  Herodias,  557  ;  the 
machinations  of,  557,  note  87. 

Antiquaries,  question  of  the  red 
color  submitted  to,  492. 

Antiquities  of  the  Phoenicians, 
496;  of  Mexico.  564. 

Antisthenes  the  cynic,  544. 

Antonius  defends  Aquillius,  273. 

Apamea,  birthplace  of  Eunus, 
199;  cradle  of  many  brother¬ 
hoods,  224,  note  89 ;  512. 

Aped  the  pomp  of  circumstances, 
274  and  note  70. 

Aphrodiastes,  462. 

Apocalyptic  church,  512. 

Apollo,  community  of,  462 ;  with 
other  deities,  468 ;  chosen  col¬ 
or  of,  471 ;  human  form,  487; 
Apollo,  Ceres,  Minerva,  481. 

Apology,  of  Tertullian,  527.. 

Apollonis  is  taken  by  Ariston- 
icus,  237. 

Apostasy,  the  sin  of,  524. 

Apothetae,  cavernous  pit  of,  533 


Appian  Way,  lined  with  the  cru¬ 
cified  men  of  Spartacus,  299. 

Appius  Claudius  got  a  license  to 
butcher  the  plebeians,  277  ;  is 
cast  into  prison,  287,  note  32; 
mention  of,  339,  500,  note  12. 

Apportionment  of  land  by  Ly- 
curgus,  532. 

Apprenticeships,  439,  note  3. 

Apulia,  bandits  of,  158 ,  revolts 
of  slaves  in,  159, 

Aqueducts,  constructed  under  a 
plan  of  socialism,  380,  note  19. 

Aquillius,  kills  Athenion,  271, 
and  notes  61,  62  ;  inscription 
of,  showing  records,  271. 

Arabs  or  Tshmaelites  of  the  Sem¬ 
itic  family,  48 

Arbitration,  510,  525  ;  supplant¬ 
ing  violence  by,  525. 

Arcadia,  401. 

Archaeologist,  future  work  that 
awaits  him,  451,  501 ;  what 
he  is  accomplishing  496. 

Archaeology  telling  of  the  deeds 
of  human  society,  48. 

Archaic  children  of  the  yens  fam¬ 
ilies,  426 ;  genitive  of,  471. 

Archery,  trapping,  spearing,  396. 

Archilochus  and  Philemon,  544. 

Archipelago,  the  G-reek,  81 ;  the 
communes  of  the,  451,  459. 

Architecture  among  Egyptians, 
74 ;  great  era  of  Grecian,  128. 

Archives  chiseled  out,  450  ;  Al¬ 
exandrian,  destroyed,  452. 

Archons,  114. 

Ardency,  from  ardea,  the  red 
bird,  478,  note  30. 

Arenariorum  collegia,  411. 

Areopagus,  the  Greek,  129;  Cle- 
anthus  and  his  lectures,  546. 

Aretliusa,  Holy  Fish,  221,  n.  81. 

Anstonicus,  his  rebellion,  100; 
uprising  at  Pergamus,  140,  31, 
150 ;  huge  mutiny  of  slaves, 
546 ;  Natural  son  of  Eumenes 
234;  comparison,  351;  chap.x. 


632 


INDEX ; 


Aristotle,  on  immortality,  62;  ac- 
knowlegment  regarding  slav¬ 
ery,  71,  96;  recognized  labor 
brotherhoods,  74;  his  philoso¬ 
phy,  116;  his  idea  of  the  work 
people,  117;  remarkable  move¬ 
ment  of,  132;  his  wisdom,  156; 
classifies  the  workers,  540;  too 
pagan-bound  to  see  beyond  the 
chains  of  slavery,  445;  one  of 
five  remarkable  men,  514;  de¬ 
scribed,  518-19;  criticism,  525. 

Armory,  of  Spartacus,  375. 

Army,  of  Athenion,  how  organ¬ 
ized,  259 ;  of  Spartacus,  num¬ 
bers  of,  310,  313;  of  Spartacus 
and  Crassus  campared,  324-5; 
strength  of,  at  Silarus,  324  sq. 

Arno,  its  fine  landscapes,  155. 

Arnobius,  his  doubts  regarding 
immortality,  62,  129,  523. 

Aroma  for  reserved  seats  of  the 
grandees,  433. 

Armoratorium  collegium,  393. 

Arrangement,  of  Roman  camp, 
467,  note  5;  471,  note  12. 

Arrius,  Q.,  in  a  battle  at  Mount 
Garganus  beats  Crixus,  306-7. 

Arrow-makers,  377,  note  10. 

Art,  architechtural,  in  Egypt  73. 

Art  and  Learning,  two  females 
in  Lucian’s  dream,  543. 

Artemis  Taurica,  215,  note  63. 

Artes  et  opificia,  366. 

Art  and  industry  not  pagan,  572. 

Article  of  agreement,  in  the  am- 
phictyonic  league,  82. 

Artisans,  organization  of,  119; 
all  slaves  in  remote  times,  ac¬ 
cording  to  Aristotle,  541. 

Artificers,  Plato’s  opinion,  539. 

Arundelian  slab,  373,  note  5. 

Aruspices,  divined  oracles,  413. 

Aryan  race,  aggressiveness  of, 
40;  struggles  with  the  Sem¬ 
itic,  41 ;  always  competitive, 
41 ;  original  home  of,  48,  55 ; 
their  slave  system,  68;  religion, 


69 ;  they  settle  permanently  in 
one  place,  73  ;  strange  beliefs 
of,  75;  not  nomadic,  84;  two 
classes  of  society,  108 ;  an  an¬ 
cient  stock,  526-7. 

Asconius,  testifies  that  the  reli¬ 
gious  union  secretly  continued 
the  trade  union  tactics,  347. 

Ashes,  the  holy,  364,  note  19. 

Asia  Minor,  free  labor  driven  out 
of,  by  slavery,  156  ;  effect  of 
third  Punic  war  in,  178;  the 
field  of  labor  organization,  496; 
more  relics  found  there  than 
in  Greece,  511. 

Asiatic  races,  70;  workmen,  489. 

Aspasia,  a  beautiful  Greek,  125 

Aspidopegeion,  a  shield  factory, 
547. 

Assassination,  in  ancient  Greece 
98 ;  later,  of  2,000  men,  107, 
note  46;  of'Viriathus,  187;  of 
Clonius  by  Salvius,  254;  by 
Horatius,  of  a  sister,  475,  note 
22  ;  of  Polemarch  by  his  own 
slaves,  547. 

Assassins,  of  the  Gracchi,  241, 
note  19. 

Assignation  houses,  557. 

Asshurbanipal,  library  of,  newly 
unearthed,  460. 

Associations,  protective,  formed 
by  freedmen,  85 ;  for  protec¬ 
tion  and  pleasure,  111. 

Asylum,  of  the  Palikoi  Twins, 
247,  257;  of  the  castle  of  Su- 
nion,  143-4  and  note  34. 

Atabyrius  (Jupiter),  450. 

Atargatis,  the  sun-goddess,  236. 

Athena,  statues  of,  101 ;  her  im¬ 
age,  430  ;  Greek  Minerva,  468. 

Athenseus,  the  Egyptian  author, 
166  ;  quotes  Nymphodorus, 
Zeno,  168. 

Athenian,  marine  force,  107;  de¬ 
feated  by  a  strike,  138;  com¬ 
pared  with  the  Spartans,  139 ; 
census,  193;  slaves  desert,  140. 


INDEX . 


633 


Athenio  Pastor,  the  farmer-slave 
who  revolted,  262  and  note  40. 

Athenion,  terribly  punished  in  his 
rebellion,  xii.;  the  under  cur¬ 
rent  of  news,  140 ;  a  poor  mao, 
181 ;  born  in  Syria,  199;  was  a 
Cilician,  258 ;  described,  258, 
note  29,  also  263  ;  in  chains, 
264;  wounded,  266;  recovers, 
267 ;  still  victorious,  269 ;  at 
last  killed,  271,  note  61;  Saint 
Paul,  513 ;  influence  of,  as  well 
as  of  Drimakos,  517. 

Athens,  two  classes  at,  108 ;  tol¬ 
eration  of  the  brotherhoods  at, 
113;  the  jugglers,  112;  cen¬ 
sus  of,  193;  dangerous  slaves, 
211 ;  numerous  communes  at, 
452 ;  magistrates  encouraged 
the  brotherhoods,  455,  note  16. 

Atrocities,  that  caused  Gracchus 
to  revolt,  193. 

Atrophy,  benumbing  the  social 
organism,  494. 

Attalists,  members  of  an  eranos, 
98,  note  27. 

Attalus  III.,  deeded  his  kingdom 
to  the  Romans,  232,  233,  512; 
his  crazy  tricks,  222,  546. 

Attica,  rebellion  of  miners,  100; 
Ceres  worshiped  in,  198. 

Augury,  foreshadowing  death  of 
Gracchus,  240;  how  conveyed 
and  understood,  564. 

Augustalis,  domus  collegia ,  507. 

Augustan  unions,  429,  note  3. 

Augustonemetum,  485. 

Augustus,  emperor  of  Rome,  80; 
mild  reign  of,  518. 

Auletrid,  female  flute-player,  463. 

Auletrides — they  were  members 
of  the  brotherhoods,  455. 

Auvergne,  red  banner  at,  481. 

Autranius  Maximus,  cruelty  of, 
to  his  slave,  141,  note  34. 

Aurinia,  wife  of  Spartacus,  290 
and  note  37 ;  what  Tacitus  says 
regarding  her,  303,  note  73 ; 


her  prophecy,  305,  note  78. 

Avella,  300,  note  60. 

Avenger,  of  the  disaster  of  Cras- 
sus,  243,  note  21. 

Avenging  sacrifice,  of  Sparta¬ 
cus,  304,  note  77. 

Awe-inspiring  divinities  of  the 
Thalian  temple,  248,  note  3 ; 
reverence  necessary  to  ancient 
leaders  of  revolts,  274,  note  70; 
striking  hues,  479. 

Axe,  sacrificial,  of  Triphon,  264, 
note  43;  lictor’s  instrument  of 
execution,  475. 

Axiom,  of  Aristotle,  561 ;  a  con¬ 
clusion  from  this  research,  509. 

Aztecs,  gladiatorial  feast  of  the 
Mexican  Xipe,  276;  a  speci¬ 
men  prayer  of  the,  564. 

Azure,  466. 

B 

Baal,  attributes  of,  491. 

Babe,  Plato  when  a,  118,  note  72. 

Babylonians,  401. 

Bacchanalia,  ill-founded  preju¬ 
dice  against,  502;  ditties,  454; 
slander  of  the,  161 ;  affair  of 
the,  452, 

Bacchantes,  societies  of  the,  158, 
493. 

Bacchic,  not  the  characteristics 
of  the  thiasos,  503  note  20. 

Bacchus,  sons  of,  450;  protective 
principle,  469. 

Backsliding,  524,  551.’ 

Bagpipe,  age  of  the,  408. 

Bagpipers’  union,  408. 

Baker,  bath  attendant  and  king’s 
fool,  of  Eunus,  230. 

Bakers,  349;  six  out  of  eleven 
of  their  banners  red,  489. 

Ballista,  or  stone-thrower,  378. 

Ballot,  democracy  of  the,  525; 
the  ancient,  as  shown  in  the 
inscriptions  of  Pompeii,  572. 

Banausoi  technitai,  of  Aristotle, 


634 


INDEX . 


541;  uncouth  and  hoyden,  542. 

Bancroft,  on  monumental  archae¬ 
ology,  xi.;  quotation  from,  278. 

Banderoles  (ribbons),  463  &  cut. 

Banner,  makers  of  the  ancient 
red.  418,  471;  bearer  or  signi- 
fer,  484;  color  of,  note  46. 

Banquets,  gladiatorial  spectacles 
at,  277  and  note  1. 

Baptism,  day  of,  at  Eleusis,  91  ; 
it  was  the  form  of  the  bathing- 
custom  of  thiasotes,  504,  n.  23. 

Bastardy,  of  what  it  was  consti¬ 
tuted,  344  note  28. 

Batons,  with  ends  pointed  for 
cooking,  504. 

Battering  down  the  walls  of  Tau- 
romanion,  227. 

Battering-ram,  379;  described  p. 
378  &  note  12;  makers’  unions 
demolished  -walls,  488,  note  53. 

Battle,  of  Zama,  152;  between 
slaves  and  Romans,  157 ;  the 
Hill  of  Venus,  183,  sq.;  of  Dri- 
makos,  171 ;  of  Fydna,  186; 
of  Erisane,  187 ;  of  Cleon  and 
Achasus  with  Hypsaeus,  217  ; 
ofAlaba,  254;  bofore  Morgan  - 
tion,256;  of  Triocala,  262,  266; 
of  Scirthaea,  265-6;  of  Mes- 
sana,  269;  of  Macella,  270;  of 
Silarus,  327,  note  128;  of  Lu- 
cte,  242;  of  Morgantion,  Sal- 
vius,256,  note  25;  of  Scirthsea, 
265-6,  note  45,  of  Macella — 
Athenion  killed,  271,  note  61; 
first,  of  Spartacus,  293;  Ves¬ 
uvius,  295,  note  51;  victories 
of  Spartacus,  308,  note  84;  of 
Mt.  Garganus,  306-7,  note  80; 
of  Picenum,  310,  note  92:  of 
Silarus,  323  sqq.  and  note  121  ; 
in  Epirus,  340,  note  17. 

Battle-axe,  and  praetorian  bun¬ 
dles,  299,  note  58. 

Baxea,  ancient  shoe,  420. 

Beasts,  wild,  for  the  amphithea¬ 
tres.  395,  note  20, 


Beaufort,  a  hunters’ union  found 

there,  394. 

Beautiful,  under  Plato’s  meaning 
or  as  he  interpreted  it,  515. 

Beatitudes  of  the  underground 
paradise,  563. 

Beauty,  of  the  boys  emasculated 
by  slave  merchants,  168-69, 
note  7;  of  the  red  color,  mak¬ 
ing  it  prefered,  470. 

Bedstead  factory,  owned  by  De¬ 
mosthenes,  548. 

Beer  halls,  rather  than  churches 
welcomed  the  agitators,  573. 

Beggary,  ragpickers’  unions,  422. 

Behavior,  criticism  of,  535. 

Beleaguered,  by  tramps,  261  and 
note  37. 

Belles-lettres,  of  Greece,  128. 

Bellowings,  the  frightful,  of  the 
brimstone  lake,  248,  note  3. 

Berberinis,  temple  of,  399. 

Bethlehem,  offering  of  ignominy 
of,  509. 

Betrayal,  both  of  Socrates  and 
Jesus,  514. 

Bible,  in  Greek,  87;  Zend  and 
other  oriental  records,  526. 

Bigotry,  and  empiricism,  538. 

Bird,  a  new  analysis  of  the  red 
bird,  478  and  note  30. 

Birth  and  standing  of  Spartacus, 
282,  note  13,  285,  note  22. 

Birthday,  of  the  goddess  Antinoe, 
357;  of  the  patron  saint  Jo¬ 
seph,  488. 

Birthplace,  of  Athenion,  258 ;  of 
Eunus,  512;  it  was  a  cradle  of 
the  brotherhoods,  512;  of  sev¬ 
eral  wonderful  characters,  513. 

Bisellarii,  union  of  the,  431. 

Bismarck,  71. 

Bithynia,  249,  note  5. 

Bitter  waters,  130,  note  96. 

Black  sea  slave  traffic,  286, 
note  27. 

Blasphemy,  250,  note  10. 

Blat.tearii,  or  dyers,  418. 


INDEX ; 


635 


BJaze,  analysis  of,  471. 

Blazoned  in  red,  472. 

Blemish,  infants  with  a,  533. 

Blessed,  kingdom,  government  of 
the,  550 ;  the,  of  Plato’s  ideal 
republic,  548. 

Blind,  cured  by  visiting  the  tem¬ 
ple  of  the  Twins,  248,  note  3. 

Blockade,  and  siege  of  Tauroma- 
nion,  226,  note  07. 

Blood-making,  not  blood-letting- 
472  ;  spilling,  what  was  em¬ 
blematic  of,  472;  red  banners, 
484;  red  storm  signals,  487  ; 
blood  and  lineage,  534. 

Bloody  uprisings,  403. 

Blossius,  the  labor  agitator,  173; 
in  Asia  Minor,  239;  friend  of 
Gracchus,  222,  240;  story  of 
Cicero,  241.  note  18;  commits 
suicide,  243. 

Blotting  the  page  of  history,  536. 

Blue  and  azure,  479. 

Board  of  public  works,  election 
of,  by  plebeians,  474,  note  20. 

Boatmen’s  unions,  an  inscription, 
113,  note  62;  trade  union  of, 
119,  383,  note  26,  384;  in  the 
provinces,  445,  note  2;  colle¬ 
gium  naviculariorum,  445. 

Bocchus,  the  Moor,  260,  note  35. 

Boeckh,  112,  161;  his  analytical 
works,  343. 

Bodies,  of  mechanics,  360,  note  3. 

Bodily  powers,  of  Viriathus,  180, 

Body,  or  union,  378. 

Boedromion,  Greek  month  em¬ 
bracing  September,  87,  130. 

Boetia,  a  state  in  Greece,  79,  n.  32. 

Bombardini,  Italian  jurist,  154. 

Bonfire,  of  Spartacus,  304,  note 

77. 

Book-gluers,  435. 

Boot-makers’  unions  (caligari- 
orum),  380,  421, 

Booty,  of  Spartacus,  300,  note 
59;  of  Crassus  by  recapture, 
319  note  118, 


Borrowed,  and  lent,  sexual  loves 
in  Spartan  state  527 ;  Lycur- 
gus,  from  the  Cretans,  572. 

Bouillet  cited,  on  red  colors,  483. 

Bounty,  given  informants,  on 
slave  strikes,  151,  note  18. 

Bourgeoisie,  so  called  by  Saint 
Simon,  526. 

Bows,  javelins,  arrows,  helmets, 
shields,  397. 

Boys,  forced  to  fight  at  gladia¬ 
torial  spectacles,  277,  note  1. 

Boyhood  of  Viriathus,  180,  n.  2. 

Branded,  all  slaves,  196,  note  17 ; 
and  ears  pierced,  385,  note  30. 

Brasidas,  a  Spartan  general,  107. 

Brass-workers,  360,  note  3. 

Bravery,  grand  exhibits  of,  321. 

Bread,  slaves  not  allowed  to  eat 
the  white  kind,  135. 

Breastwork,  of  Crassus,  315,  the 
note  109. 

Bribe,  offered  Nerva,  249 ;  bribe 
taking,  515. 

Bridle-makers,  485,  note  46. 

Brigandage,  common  in  early 
times,  119  ;  was  no  crime  in 
ancient  days,  121  ;  the  origin 
of  Italian,  161  ;  existed  in  ex¬ 
tremely  early  ages,  280  ;  once 
very-  formidable,  511. 

Bridges,  constructed  under  the 
state  control,  380,  note  19. 

Brilliant  red  hue,  470. 

Brimstone  lake,  248,  note  3, 
251,  and  note  13. 

Brioude,  unions  of,  484. 

British  soldiers,  likened  to  a  flock 
of  red-birds,  479;  the  signal 
jack,  487. 

Brixia,  weavers’  and  carders’ 
union  found  at,  417. 

Broadsword,  411. 

Broil,  of  Crassus,  with  the  Thra¬ 
cian  soldier,  242,  note  20. 

Broker — gladiator,  412. 

Bronterre  O’Bryan,  on  the  slave- 
wars,  274,  note  70. 


636 


INDEX . 


Bronze  workers,  335.  n.  6,  375. 

Brotliels,  a  comparison  made  by 
Theophrastus,  543. 

Brotherhoods,  127,  note  87 ;  the 
ancient,  362,  note  11;  of  the 
eranoi,  455,  note  16,  and  458, 
note  18;  they  had  already 
lived  the  revolution,  498, ;  the 
great Eleusinian,  504;  frowned 
upon,  511 ;  of  the  thiasotes, 
524;  Christianity  modeled, 553. 

Brundusium,  Spartacus  marches 
to,  320 ;  he  again  attempts  to 
cross  over  to  Sicily  from,  321-2; 
arrival  of  Lucullus  prevents  it, 
323,  note  121. 

Brutal  conduct,  of  the  customs 
collectors,  440. 

Brutus,  the  brothers,  135. 

Buccinator,  who  played  the  shep¬ 
herd’s  horn,  408. 

Budaeus,  370,  note  34. 

Buddhism,  4G0. 

Buecher,  136,  138,  157,  177. 

Buffoons,  403. 

Building,  performed  by  slaves, 
without  pay,  39;-trades  under 
two  names,  360,  369,  370,  380. 

Bunker  Hill,  flag  of,  492. 

Bully,  society  began  with  the, 
84 ;  the  first  slaves  were  liis 
children,  84 ;  the  low  original 
bully,  560. 

Bulwark,  of  democratic  rule,  the 
reverse  of  slavery,  542. 

Bundles,  fasces  and  axe,  471. 

Burden-bearers,  499,  note  11. 

Burial,  the  rite  refused  the  slave, 
75;  this  stamped  his  disgrace, 
75,  85;  society  for,  97;  soci- 
ties  for,  in  Greece,  115,  127; 
in  Rome,  278,  342,  347,  353, 
gladiatorial,  278,  note  3 ;  of 
Lanuvium,  with  entire  inscrip¬ 
tion,  353-8;  associations,  559. 

Business  tenets,  of  the  Greek  sa¬ 
cred  and  civil  communes,  113, 
note  63 ;  chrematistikos  or  bu¬ 


siness  man  of  Plato  and  Aris- 
totel,  539. 

Butchered,  at  the  amphitheatre, 
292,  note  41. 

Butcher-knife  policy,  of  Eunus, 
228. 

Butchers — where  their  unions 
were  located,  388,  490;  for  a 
Roman  holiday,  307. 

Butchery,  of  rebel  slaves,  252, 
note  15. 

By-laws,  of  the  millers  and  ba¬ 
kers,  445,  note  2. 

Byzantium,  unions  at,  113. 

c 

0  ab-drivers,  unions  of,  383  and 
note  26. 

Cade,  Jack,  559. 

Cecilius,  Oalectenus,  words  of, 
165;  on  the  statistics  of  cruci- 
fiixions,  330. 

Oaepio,  causes  Yiriathus  to  be 
murdered,  187 ;  fifth  general 
sent  against  Yiriathus,  187. 

Caeruleum,  (sagum),  475;  the 
caerulean  Zeus,  476,  note  24. 

Caesar,  123;  suppressed  all  the 
unions,  365,  note  23,  397;  con¬ 
quest,  439;  kills  a  million,  570. 

Caius,  confraternities  that  fol¬ 
lowed,  462. 

Caligarii,  soldiers’  boot-makers’ 
union,  421. 

Caligula,  despotism  of,  xiii.;  his 
cruelty,  280. 

Calistlienic  games,  535. 

Calliades,  they  were  nobles,  95. 

Callias,  manager  of  the  mines  of 
Laurium,  136,  137. 

Callicrates,  one  of  the  architects 
of  the  Parthenon,  125. 

Calumniators,  of  Diodorus,  220. 

Cambalus,  a  wealthy  citizen  of 
Morgantion,  212;  death,  212; 
the  story  told,  212,  note  54 

Camps  of  Servilius  and  Lucullusi 


INDEX . 


637 


262,  note  40;  267,  note  50. 
Canada,  organized  labor  in,  128. 
Canaan, 496, 498;  numerous  com¬ 
munes  in,  504;  rigorous  law 
against  the  brotherhoods,  508. 
Canaanites,  the  first  among  the 
brotherhoods,  496. 

Candidate,  for  membership,  461. 
Cannibalism,  226,  note  97. 
Cantiopolis,  or  our  Kent,  and  its 
trade  unions,  487. 

Capitalists,  54,  wealth. 

Capitoline  Hill,  prison  under,  154 
Capitolinus,  a  Roman  consul,  145, 
Cappadocia,  239;Comana  of,  215, 
note  63  ;  an  early  post  of  the 
brotherhoods,  512. 

Captos,  mines  near,  138. 
Capture,  of  Syracuse,  221. 
Capua,  description  of,  285,  288, 
289;  amphitheatre  at,  289. 
Career  Tullianus,  230. 

Carders,  their  flag,  486. 
Caroused,  the  Spartan  boys  and 
girls,  530. 

Carpenters,  wages  paid  to,  137, 
361  n.  8;  unions  of,  364;  patron 
saint  Joseph,  488;  their  bat¬ 
tering-rams,  488,  note  53. 
Cart-load  of  iron  money,  531. 
Carthage,  destruction  of,  178 ; 

horrible  bloodshed,  179. 
Carthagenian  hostages,  join  the 
slave  uprising,  152-4;  these, 
and  the  other  Phoenician  col¬ 
onies  still  have  red,  491. 
Carvers  organized  at  Athens,  127. 
Cassiterides,  or  tin  islands,  483. 
Cassius,  at  Mutina,  307,  note 
81;  defeated  by  Sparteaus,313, 

314. 

Castle,  of  Sunion,  100.  _ 
Oastrensiariorum  collegia,  398. 
Castus  and  Gannicus,  319,  note 
118. 

Catacombs,  of  Paris,  155;  those 
of  Rome,  155. 

Catana,  daughter  of  Damophilus 


taken  by  Hermias,  to,  206. 
Catastrophe,  of  Tauromanion, 
229 ;  being  hemmed  in  caused 
the  dire  disaster,  269. 
Categories,  of  hTuma,  335,  note 
6;  of  Dionysius  of  Halicarnas¬ 
sus,  360;  of  the  federations, 
368-9;  Numa’s  shoemakers, 
380,  note  20;  of  Aristotle,  541. 
Cato  the  Elder,  a  slave  driver, 
141,  159,  178;  tried  to  punish 
Galba,  181. 

Catulus,  deplored  by  Cicero,  499, 
note  12. 

Caucasian,  an  Aryan  race,  48. 
Caudicarii,  (bargers)  on  the  Ti¬ 
ber,  belonged  to  the  unions, 
440. 

Cauldron,  of  the  brimstone  lake, 
248,  note  3. 

Cave-dwellers,  42. 

Caves,  relics  found  in,  67 ;  men 
living  in,  530. 

Celeus,  king,  130. 

Census,  of  Corinth,  193;  of  Ath¬ 
ens,  193;  of  antiquity,  slaves, 
freedmen  and  children  were 
not  counted,  340,  note  17;  the 
workers  and  non- workers  so 
distinct  that  the  former  were 
not  counted  as  human,  348. 
Centers,  of  the  early  church,  513. 
Centonarii,  or  ragpickers,  422. 
Central  America,  the  inscriptions 
found  in,  112,  note  57. 
Centralization  of  wealth,  upon 
individuals,  at  highest  stage, 
283,  note  17. 

Cephalion — a  savior  from,  509, 
Cephalonia,  Alexander  of,  462. 
Cephistodus,  a  brother-in-law  to 
Phocion,  545. 

Cercenses  (Ludi),  410. 
Cerberus,  watch-dog  of  the  infer¬ 
nal  regions,  90. 

Ceres,  or  Demeter,  77,  87;  story 
of  her  daughter,  Proserpine, 
88,  89;  represented  the  cereal 


038 


INDEX. 


products  of  farm  labor,  90 ;  rid¬ 
iculed  by  a  slave,  130;  temple 
of,  at  Enna,  198;  she  shielded 
Sicily  from  famine,  198;  was 
believed  to  be  the  mother  of 
the  world,  198;  revealed  her¬ 
self  in  dreams  to  Eunus,  200 ; 
temple  to  her  honor,  208;  god¬ 
dess  of  Sicily,  223;  she  was 
related  to  their  great  sun-god, 
Apollo,  463  and  plate;  god¬ 
dess  of  agriculture,  469 ;  she  is 
identical  with  many  other  di¬ 
vinities  of  farms  and  gardens, 
470-1;  see  Minerva  and  Apollo, 
and  488;  for  further  details  of, 
consult  chapter  iv.,  Eleusinian 
Mysteries. 

Chained,  the  father  of  Spartacus, 
to  a  log  of  wood,  284  and  note 
20;  to  mules,  530. 

Chair,  see  bisella,  sacerdotal  seat, 
431;  honorary,  360;  ivory,  575. 

Chaldeans,  459. 

Champion  colors,  472;  boldly 
marshaling  a,  522. 

Change,  of  systems,  what  was 
meant  by,  496;  from  human 
tools  to  labor-saving  machan- 
ical  tools,  568. 

Character,  of  Spartacus,  305,  and 
note  78. 

Characteristics,  competitive,  not 
derived  from  Hebrews,  40;  of 
the  Aryan  and  Semitic  fam¬ 
ilies,  48. 

Charilaus,  Spartan  king  531. 

Charon,  90. 

Chasuble,  or  the  red  mummy, 
483,  note  40. 

Chattel  slavery  extinct,  68 ;  con¬ 
tempt  of  masters  for,  72. 

Chaucer  and  Shakespeare,  res¬ 
cued  a  language,  569. 

Chaudesaigues,  its  half-red  ban¬ 
ner,  489. 

Cheap  deal,  of  Eunus,  219. 

Cheek,  smite,  553. 


Chemists  fortify  the  arguments, 
of  the  new  philosophy,  62. 

Chians,  superstition  of  the,  169; 
their  vices,  168-9  and  note  7 ; 
Drimakos,  see  chapter  viii.,  pp. 
163-177;  horrible  story  told  by 
Herodotus,  of  the  vengeance 
of  Hermotius,  168  note  7. 

Chicken,  entrails  of  the,  for  the 
aruspex,  240 ;  the,  which  Soc¬ 
rates  and  his  companions  owed 
for,  553. 

Children,  numbers  of,  by  Pallas 
Gideon,  Apson,  Jair,  49;  kill¬ 
ing  of,  among  the  ancients,  53 ; 
the  first-born  son,  69;  canni¬ 
balism  which  devoured  them 
at  Tauromanion,/226 ;  forced 
to  fight  each  other  with  knives, 
277;  not  reckoned,  in  the  cen¬ 
sus,  340,  note  17;  enslaved  and 
killed,  525;  communism  of, 
537. 

Chiton,  and  toga,  or  himation, 
478;  chlamys,  himation,  toga, 
481;  at  the  feast,  503. 

Chlamys,  was  red,  476,  note  24; 
chiton,  toga,  481. 

Choice  of  a  trade,  Lucian’s,  543. 

Christianity,  its  introduction,  re¬ 
sisted  by  the  image-makers, 
vii. ;  account  of,  41,  42,  46; 
strifes  about  idol  worship,  viii.; 
present  movement  is  building 
upon  it,  xi.;  modern  greed  not, 
xii.  68,  74,  78, 97;  first  planted 
among  the  communes,  341-9; 
exclusion  of  the  brotherhood 
from  Eleusinian  mysteries,  86; 
era  of,  based  upon  absolute 
equality  of  all  mankind,  337; 
took  up  the  community  prin¬ 
ciple,  451;  why  it  so  readily 
took  root,  512 ;  by  whom  per¬ 
verted,  555 ;  true  functions  of, 
yet  hopefully  returning,  519, 
and  573. 

Christmas  compared  to  the  Sa* 


INDEX. 


639 


urnalia,  for  relaxation,  502. 

Chroniclers,  what  they  left  un¬ 
written,  498. 

Chronology,  of  the  Sicilian  slave 
war,  of  Eunus,  214,  note  57. 

Church,  celebrated  plant,  upon 
grounds  mellowred  by  the  com¬ 
munes,  512;  based  upon  the 
ancient  brotherhoods,  509  and 
the  whole  argument  contained 
in  chapter  xxiv.,  pp.  520-573. 

Cicero,  an  admirer  of  Paganism, 
87;  on  the  vectigalia,  119;  his 
contempt  for  the  workingmen, 
102;  spurned  and  cast  obloquy 
upon  the  bacchanals,  159;  en¬ 
emy  of  the  plebeians,  284 ;  as 
a  valuable  historian,  301,  302; 
an  aristocrat,  345;  the  mortal 
foe  to  the  ancient  brotherhoods, 
345;  his  tirades  against  Glo- 
dius  who  befriended  them,  499, 
note  12;  his  opinions  as  he  ex-' 
pressed  them,  540;  the  lowly 
despised,  543. 

Cimon,  riches  of,  137,  note  16; 
a  mine  contractor,  136-7,  140; 
and  Nicias,  146. 

Oircumvallation,  line  of/ at  Rhe- 
gium,  318. 

Circus,  332,  411. 

Citadel,  of  Sunion  taken  by  slaves, 
143,  &  note  40 ;  of  Morgantion 
in  which  Comanawas  besieged, 
257,  note  27;  of  Macella,  270. 

Cithara,  Alexander  played,  544. 

Cities,  did  not  exist  in  the  earlier 
ages,  82-85,  note  4. 

Citizens,  of  the  sun,  244,  note  22  ; 
what  constituted  a,  344,  note 
27;  who  he  was,  496;  stock, 
and  what  they  seized,  498; 
the  three  classes  of  Lycurgus, 
526;  those  of  Sparta,  529 ;  in 
collective  goods  they  were  rich, 
529;  citizens  of  the  sun,  550. 

Civilization,  outgrew  slavery,  71. 

Clairvoyant,  413. 


Classes,  two  among  the  ancients, 
96;  the  distinction  defined, 
344,  note  27;  of  the  working 
people,  540. 

Classic,  the  old  Latin,  dead,  569. 

Claudius,  Appius,  277,  287,  see 
Appius ;  Marcellus,  a  Roman 
consul,  157;  another  consul  at 
the  time  of  the  first  gladiato¬ 
rial  spectacle,  277,  note  2;  Pul- 
cher,  who  curried  favor  with 
the  plebeians,  344. 

Clazomense,  silver  coin  from,  481, 
note  34. 

Clean-washed,  and  fat,  467,  469, 

Cleaners,  of  the  blood  in  the  am¬ 
phitheatres — a  union  of,  395. 

Cleft,  hiding  place  of  the  moun¬ 
tain,  230. 

Cleon,  62,  167,  196,  413;  a  Sili- 
cian  brigand,  215;  his  rebell¬ 
ion  in  southern  Sicily,  216;  he 
defeats,  assisted  by  Achieus, 
the  Roman,  Hypsseus,  217 ;  his 
death,  228. 

Clepsydra,  130,  note  96. 

Cleptius,  the  bold,  264. 

Clerk,  to  unions,  383,  note  26. 

Clermont,  exquisite  red  banner 
of,  485;  color  of  its  flag,  485, 
note  48. 

Clients,  their  relation  to  the  citi¬ 
zen  class,  344,  note  27. 

Cloak,  religion  as  a,  346  note  36; 
of  blue  and  azure,  475. 

Glodian  Gamala,  the  precocious 
youth,  383,  note  26. 

Olodius,  161;  Glaber,  defeat  of, 
by  the  gladiators,  295;  his  ter¬ 
ror,  295,  note  51 ;  law  of,  302, 
note  69  ;  brother-in-law  to  Lu- 
oullus,  322  ;  prevents  the  en¬ 
actment  of  conspiracy  laws  to 
suppress  the  unions,  344;  Cic¬ 
ero  inveighs  against,  345,  note 
33 ;  intrepid  orator  and  trib¬ 
une,  363 ;  compared  with  Blos- 
sius  and  Gracchus,  474;  speech 


640 


INDEX. 


of  CJicero  against,  499,  note  12; 
in  favor  with  the  trade  unions, 
552. 

Clonius,  murder  of,  253,  note  16. 

Cloth-fullers’  brotherhoods,  who 
worked  for  the  state,  416,  n.  5. 

Clothes,  manner  of  ancient,  415; 
of  the  slaves,  385,  note  30. 

Clowns,  403,  and  note  6. 

Clubs,  soldiers  of  the  defeated 
Mummius  killed  with,  315  and 
note  108;  of  the  eranoi,  508; 
brutalized  with,  530. 

Cneus  Sentius’.  inscription,  383, 
note  26. 

Coarse  bread,  for  slaves,  385  and 
note  30. 

Coat  of  arms,  469. 

Coctorum  collegium — union  of 
the  cooks,  398. 

Code,  of  Lycurgus,  69 ;  of  Solon, 
127;  communal,  of  self-sustain¬ 
ing  rules,  335,  note  7 ;  of  The¬ 
odosius,  373;  of  the  gamblers 
with  methods,  456. 

Collective,  wealth,  529. 

Collectors,  of  tax,  382 ;  the  vec- 
tigalia,  437;  unions  of,  at  Ly¬ 
ons,  439  and  note  3. 

College-G-ymnasium,  of  Altona, 
247;  of  ancient  collegium  of 
working  people  in  the  guise  of 
piety,  357;  of  Italy,  77;  the 
sancta  and  their  tactics,  362; 
naviculariorum,  445 ;  they  were 
fond  of  parading  in  red,  477; 
the  collegium  was  a  veritable 
trade  union,  341 ;  of  the  rag¬ 
pickers  (centonariorum),  422; 
identical  with  eranos,  506. 

Coliseum,  reserved  seats  of  the 
grandees  known  by  the  aroma 
at  the,  433. 

Colophon,  in  the  labor  war,  235. 

Colors,  what  were  the  true  rudi- 
mentalones,  470,  note  10;  tu¬ 
telary  patron  of,  490 ;  a  charm 
to  season  the  dry  annals,  497 ; 


their  enumeration,  470. 

Colossus,  the  cryselephantine,  ol 
Athena,  431. 

Coma,  of  Pamphylia,  215,  note 
64 ;  a  brother  of  Cleon,  an  es¬ 
caped  slave,  215. 

Comana,  what  Valerius  Maximus 
says,  215,  note  64;  a  town  in 
Asia  Minor,  215. 

Comanus,  extraordinary  suicide 
of,  227. 

Combats,  at  wakes,  135  ;  gladi¬ 
atorial,  278,  note  3;  no  mock¬ 
ery  in  the  arena,  411. 

Combine,  for  economic  purposes, 
508. 

Come,  in  Italy,  422. 

Comic  actors’  unions  and  inscrip¬ 
tions  of,  very  many  found,  414 
and  note  37. 

Commerce,  under  Lycurgus,  69, 
disallowed,  530. 

Common  table,  abolished  by  Pyr¬ 
rhus,  287,  note  28;  robber,  a 
cognomen  for  Spartacus,  297; 
fund,  how  distributed,  507, 
and  note  27;  eating  in,  510; 
table  of  Sparta,  533. 

Commotions,  caused  by  attempts 
at  reform,  69. 

Communal,  institutions,  68;  pro¬ 
prietorship,  69;.  government, 
not  mentioned  by  inscriptions, 
73;  organizations,  at  'Rome, 
335,  note  7 ;  culture,  what  it 
was,  492;  state  of  Plato,  522. 

Communes,  formed  by  freedmen 
and  slaves,  85;  the  civil  and 
the  sacred,  113;  the  countless, 
chapter  xxi.,  pp.  444-464;  the 
Greek  world  ablaze  with,  402, 
of  the  early  Christians,  at  Fer- 
rand  in  Auvergne  485. 

Communism,  slavery  earlier  than, 
67;  in  Sparta,  109;  of  Piso, 
223 ;  of  the  Roman  trade  union 
system,  335,  note  7:  see  also 
363;  what  it  was,  458;  that  of 


INDEX. 


641 


the  isle  of  Crete  and  Sparta,  567. 

Communistic  form,  the  highest 
attempted,  72;  of  a  social  gov¬ 
ernment,  80. 

Communists,  in  Greece,  115;  con¬ 
templated  in  an  uncharitable 
light,  463 ;  under  what  aus¬ 
pices  they  did  or  did  not  work 
well,  460;  ancient  tribal  kind, 
68;  their  ancient  system,  70; 
participation  of  both  the  sexes. 
527. 

Companies,  unions  organized  in, 
302,  note  69;  arranged  in  cat¬ 
egories  of  ten,  389,  note  1 ;  the 
companions  of  the  sun,  450. 

Comparative  palaeology,  497. 

Comparison  of  the  last  battles  of 
Athenion  and  Spartacus,  271; 
of  commentary  on  numbers  in 
the  army  of  Spartacus,  325  ,n. 
124;  of  various  plans  tried  by 
the  great  men,  526. 

Competition,  no  conscience  in  the 
world  of,  64;  of  capitalists, 
396;  none  among  the  unions, 
442. 

Competitive,  system,  38,  40;  de¬ 
fined,  40-42;  struggles  to  be 
extricated  from  the,  41 ;  oldest 
system  known,  42;  the  idea 
among  the  Greeks  and  Romans 
48;  prevalent  with  all  the  an¬ 
imals,  55-6;  world  still  strug¬ 
gling  in  it,  61 ;  competitive  la¬ 
bor,  68;  slavery,  71; — system 
based  in  concupiscence,  206; 
a  description,  494;  ancient  and 
modern,  496;  comparison,  510; 
more  about  it,  524;  system 
has  nearly  always  proved  itself 
a  failure,  573. 

Compulsory,  the  law  of  Amasis, 
338,  note  14;  inscriptions,  427; 
education,  527 ;  marriage,  527, 
535. 

Concatenation,  linking  the  labor 
wars,  237. 


Conceptions,  immaculate,  559. 

Conclusions — axioms  reached  by 
investigation,  122,  509,  561. 

Concupiscence,  74;  under Lycur- 
gus,  109;  Paganism  rested  on 
it,  206;  moral  impulses,  515; 
of  Rome,  517. 

Conde  sur  Vesgre,  (society  of), 
448. 

Condition,  of  working  people  in 
ancient  times,  lowliness  of,  49. 

Conference,  of  slaves  about  to 
revolt,  251,  note  13. 

Conflict,  of  Triocala,  267. 

Confraternities,  461,  502. 

Confusion,  Diodorus  on  tramps, 
261  and  note  37. 

Congregation,  of  the  Hebrews, 
40;  Tertullian  on  the,  552, 
and  note  70. 

Connubial,  tie  opened  free  inter¬ 
course,  536. 

Conquest,  the  Roman,  480,  499. 

Conscience,  annihilation  of,  59; 
the  origin  of  ghosts,  61;  ani¬ 
mals  have  little,  64 ;  it  may  be 
based  in  cunning,  62  ;  a  pow¬ 
erful  agent  in  bringing  about 
good,  66;  the  foundation  of 
religion,  62;  ethical  custom* 
and  habits  built  upon  it,  61. 

Conscription,  302,  note  69. 

Conspiracy ,  against  Plato’s  life, 
119;  laws  to  curtail  liberties, 
120;  those  of  Roman  Caesars, 
123  and  note  76;  law  of  Eliz¬ 
abeth,.  126 ;  of  slaves  to  burn 
Rome,  148  ;  laws  to  suppress, 
283,  note  15;  laws  passed  b.  o. 
58,  346;  crucifixion  the  pen¬ 
alty  and  punishment,  152. 

Constancy,  of  woman,  303,  note 
72. 

Constantine,  customs  and  habits 
at  the  time  of,  486,  489 ;  the 
Great,  521. 

Consternation,  at  Rome,  after  the 
victories  of  Spartacus,  311. 


642 


INDEX. 


Contempt,  for  the  workers  fell 
with  the  establishment  of  the 
new  era,  384;  of  the  low-born 
people,  407;  of  labor,  544;  a 
specimen  shown,  545,  also  the 
note  54. 

Contour,  fine,  of  the  body,  535. 

Contractors,  at  Laurium,  135. 

Convent,  Pagan  temple  of  the 
Twins,  247. 

Convicts,  working  in  the  mines, 
138. 

Convivialities,  ancient,  502. 

Convulsion,  in  nature,  276 ;  that 
caused  by  introduction  of  the 
new  principles,  495. 

Cooks,  of  Eunus,  230  and  note 
105;  unions  of,  398;  shops — 
ideas  of  Theophrastus,  543. 

Co-operation,  aim  of  the  ancient 
labor  movement,  38;  it  under¬ 
mines  the  incentives  to  crime, 
61;  reasons  why  slaves  were 
partial  toward  it,  86 ;  its  good 
works,  379;  peaceful  rather 
than  aggressive,  461 ;  co-op¬ 
erative  system  defined,  40;  its 
struggles  to  bring  about  much 
wanted  changes,  41 ;  used  by 
the  Semitic  races,  48 ;  the  har¬ 
monious  system,  56,  57 ;  asso¬ 
ciations  of  the  lords  to  obtain 
the  benefits  which  it  offers,  in 
protection,  81. 

Copied  (writings  of  the  ancients), 
times  without  number,  436. 

Copyists,  wages  paid  to,  137. 

Oordonniers,  of  the  Middle  Ages, 

484. 

Oorfinium,  the  union  of  hunters 
found  at,  393. 

Corinth,  census  of,  193 ;  gulf  of, 
210;  population  in  b.  o.  300, 
193;  its  slavery,  522,  note  1. 

Corn  grits,  for  slaves  and  freed- 
men,  383,  note  26. 

Oornicularius,  an  old  term  for  a 
secretary,  439. 


Corporations,  of  trade  unions, 
366,  note  24;  of  the  Roman 
empire,  416,  note  8. 

Corporos,  sodalicia  and  collegia, 
implied  the  same  meaning  as 
unions,  366  and  note  10. 

Corsair,  for  kidnaping,  498, 

Cos,  inscription  at,  462. 

Cosseir,  mines  near,  138. 

Oossinus,  a  man  of  uncommon 
judgment,  his  defeat,  297-8. 

Cost,  of  living,  engraved  on  the 
Egyptian  pyramid,  446,  note  4. 

Cotton,  how  used,  415. 

Couch,  celebrated  dining  couch, 
400;  makers,  registered  by  the 
archaeologist  Oderic,  433. 

Countless  myriads  of  women  in 
the  island  of  Crete,  340  vide 
note  17. 

Cournieres,  had  a  nearly  totally 
red  banner,  489. 

Court,  of  appeals,  94. 

Coward,  Spartacus  given  that 
epithet  by  his  insubordinate 
soldiers,  319. 

Cradle,  of  Plato,  118,  note  72. 

Crafts,  of  workmen,  430;  divin¬ 
ities,  of  remote  antiquity,  492; 
-manship  brutifies  the  indi¬ 
vidual,  539. 

Crassus,  xii.;  spoke  Greek  and 
its  Asiatic  dialects,  238,  note 
12 ;  Publius,  his  character,  241; 
L.,  made  consul,  312 ;  loses  the 
battle  of  Mutina,  313;  his  tac¬ 
tics,  313;  adheres  to  the  Fab¬ 
ian  mode  of  warfare,  321 ;  he 
becomes  the  legal  commander 
of  the  combined  armies  of  Lu- 
cullus  and  Pompey,  323. 

Crater,  of  the  brimstone  pool  of 
the  Twins,  248,  note  3. 

Credentials,  of  regular  chartered 
unions,  437. 

Cremation,  75,  note  19;  in  an¬ 
cient  times,  71 ;  was  the  usual 
form  of  interment  among  the 


INDEX. 


643 


freedmen,  75;  the  working 
people  were  too  poor  to  bury, 
they  were  obliged  to  burn 
their  dead,  345. 

Orescent  moon,  wife  of  the  flam¬ 
ing  Apollo,  491. 

Crete,  great  schemes,  572;  count¬ 
less  myriads  of  women,  340, 

note  17. 

Crier,  for  traders  and  winemen’s 
unions,  383,  note  26. 

Criminals  or  malefactors’  punish¬ 
ment,  475. 

Crispin,  the  unions  first  organ¬ 
ized  by,  483 ;  account  of  him 
and  of  his  brother  Orispinian, 
420,  421. 

Criticism,  of  Lycurgus,  525;  of 
Aristotle,  536. 

Crito,  scenes  of  Socrates,  562. 

Crixus,  actions  of,  62;  his  com¬ 
patriot,  (Enomaus,  289,  note 
36;  elected  lieutenants,  under 
Spartacus,  294;  death  of,  307; 
retaliation  of  Spartacus  for  the 
fallen  hero,  308-9,  332,  406. 

Cross,  see  crucifixion. 

Croton,  battle  of,  320. 

Grouching,  nude  and  suffering, 
532-3. 

Crown,  of  foliage,  462;  of  Stra- 
tonice,  463  and  plate. 

Crucible,  of  a  thousand  tradi¬ 
tions,  523. 

Crucifixion,  of  8,000  slaves,  222; 
of  the  kitchen  mates  of  Eunus, 
230;  at  Enna,  229;  of  slaves, 
252;  of  the  devoted  fanners 
of  Aristonicus,  243;  after  the 
defeat  of  Athenion,  271;  esti¬ 
mated  total  number  of  the  la¬ 
boring  people  who  so  perished, 
330;  in  what  countries  this  ig¬ 
nominious  punishment  was  in¬ 
flicted,  499;  a  million  crucified, 
517 ;  invention  of,  and  its  ori¬ 
gin  described,  562. 

Crude  grape  juice,  384. 


Cruelty,  of  the  forked  gibbet, 
141,  note  33  ;  of  Damophilus, 
Polias,  Megallis,  201,  405  ;  of 
the  Pagan  religion,  428;  of  re¬ 
ligion,  482. 

Crusades,  origin  of;  87 ;  the  Eleu- 
sinian,  87;  conflict  of  classes  at 
the,  95;  march  to  Eleusis,  130. 

Cryptia,  secret,  of  Sparta,  537. 

Crystalization,  of  all  dark  hues, 
478. 

Cudgeled,  by  tramps,  261,  n.  37. 

Cudgels,  292,  note  41. 

Cult,  of  Men-Tyrannus,  143,  note 
39;  of  Ma,  (Artemis  Taurica), 
215,  note  63;  a  world-wide, 
451,  secret,  in  Canaan,  501; 
of  Zeus  Labraundos,  509;  of 
Serapis,  509 ;  of  the  great  com¬ 
mune  system,  emerging,  556. 

Cumse,  home  of  Blossius,  239;  a 
city  near  Rome,  186. 

Cumanian  shores,  pirates  of  the, 
316,  note  111. 

Cunning,  the  weapon  of  primi¬ 
tive  man,  60. 

Cup,  of  bitterness,  233. 

Curias,  94. 

Curiatii,  story  of  Horatius,  475, 
note  22. 

Curies,  the  outcasts  converted 
into,  86. 

Curiosity-gratifying  study  of  mil¬ 
itary  carpentry,  488,  note  53. 

Curry,  to  obtain  favors,  475. 

Cushioned  seats,  433,  note  14. 

Customs  unions,  or  collectors, 
439. 

Cutting  each  others’  throats,  277, 
note  1. 

Cybele,  the  Phrygian  goddess, 
463;  also,  470,  471;  image  of, 
481,  note  35;  goddess  of  farm¬ 
ing,  in  Palestine,  503;  tenets 
of, 562. 

Cyclones,  of  retributive  justice, 
523. 

Cyme,  in  the  labor  war,  235. 


644 


INDEX . 


Cyril,  St.,  burnt  the  archives,  452. 

•  D 

Dadouchos,  the  priest  and  torch- 
bearer  at  the  Mysteries,  92. 
Daemons,  governors  during  Sat¬ 
urn’s  reign,  47 ;  afterwards  the 
lares  or  ghosts,  48 ;  of  the  wail¬ 
ing  wood  248;  of  Socrates,  560. 
Dagger- duels,  291. 

Damophilus,  his  treatment  of  his 
slaves,  65 ;  a  rich  slave  owner 
of  Sicily,  196;  cruelties  of,  197, 
200;  his  wife,  Megallis,  and 
their  tender-hearted  daughter, 
204-6,  221 ;  owned  500  slaves, 
405;  murdered  by  them,  203-4. 
Dances,  of  the  members,  503, 
note  22 ;  under  a  species  of  con¬ 
tumely,  407 ;  among  wreaths, 
red  flags  and  banners,  503;  the 
races  and  tumbling,  535. 
Dandies,  the  jesting,  403,  note  6. 
Dangerous  slave  element,  331. 
Dared  not  march  to  the  city  of 
Rome,  310,  note  95, 

Dark  Ages,  by  what  caused,  494. 
Darwin,  views  man  as  an  animal 
destitute  of  an  immortal  prin¬ 
ciple,  59 ;  on  immortality,  62. 
Data,  of  ages  of  gladiators  given 
in  the  inscriptions,  279,  note  5. 
Date,  of  the  wars  of  Eunus,  214, 
note  57. 

Daughter,  of  Damophilus,  201, 
note  32. 

Da  Yinci,  544. 

Dawn,  of  manumission,  425. 
Day,  of  the  feasts,  484. 

Dea  Nemesi,  413. 

Dead  letter,  the  Licinian  law,  222 
and  note  84 ;  that  of  the  con¬ 
spiracy  laws,  454. 

Deal  tables  of  Spartan  state,  532. 
Death,  ancient  opinions  on,  70: 
of  Viriathus,  187 ;  of  Cleon 
228,  of  Eunus,  230;  of  Eumenes 
234,  note  3;  of  Attalus  III. 


234;  of  Blossius,  241,  note  19, 
of  Gracchus,  241;  of  Orassus 
242;  of  Aristonicus,  243;  of 
Athenion,  271;  of  Tryphon — 
Athenion  made  king — 269  and 
note  56;  of  Athenion,  note  61 
of  page  271 ;  of  Aquillius,  273 ; 
of  Spartacus,  327,  note  128; 
death  grapple,  374;  warrant, 
533;  of  Socrates,  553, 562;  of 
Jesus,  562;  of  Juvenal,  563. 
Debts,  of  Sparta,  531. 

Decay  of  Rome,  date  of  begin¬ 
ning,  according  to  Polybius, 
548. 

Deceit,  which  used  religion  as 
a  cloak,  346,  note  36. 

Decelea,  strike  of  silver  miners, 
134,  note  1,  and  146 ;  a  town 
in  Boetia,  139;  Spartan  garri¬ 
son  at,  140. 

Declaration,  regarding  slavery, 
made  by  Granier,  529. 

Decline,  of  the  Roman  honor  and 
virtue,  480  note  33. 

Deeded  his  kingdom  to  the  Ro¬ 
mans,  512. 

Deeds,  of  the  Spartans,  536. 
Deens,  unions  of  hunters,  395, 
note  20. 

Deep-rooted  hatred,  443. 

Defeat,  of  Aristonicus,  242;  of 
Lentulus,  308,  note  81;  Spar¬ 
tacus,  327-30. 

Defense,  of  Aquillius,  273. 
Deification  (self),  by  using  po¬ 
litical  priestcraft,  433. 

Deipna  apo  symboles,  old  eranos 
forbidden  by  council  of  Lao- 
dicia,  511. 

Deities,  fed  by  slaves,  75;  wor¬ 
shiped  through  sacrifices,  75; 
their  sacred  cult,  510. 
Deliverance,  of  slaves,  249,  and 
note  5. 

;  Delos,  the  great  slave  mart,  286, 
,  note  27. 

,  Demand,  emphatical,  of  Christ, 
,  553. 


INDEX. 


646 


Demeter,  and  Eunua,  168;  her-  1,100,000  persons  massacred, 
self,  Cybele,  Isis  and  others,  according  to  Josephus,  566. 
for  Ceres,  477.  Deterioration,  of  mind  by  labor, 

Demiourgoi,  workingmen,  539.  542. 

Democracy,  laws  of  the,  38;  in  Devastation,  of  Sicily  by  tramps, 
worship,  51 ;  a  Christian  basis,  261  and  note  37. 

165;  the  Spartan,  104.  an  element  of  the  plan  of  Eu- 

Demon.  see  daemon.  nus,  549. 


Demophon,  nursed  by  Ceres,  88. 

Demos  Collyte,  509. 

Demosthenes,  the  great  orator, 
101;  oration  against  Pantaetus 
the  mine  contractor,  143;  he 
despised  men  of  humble  birth, 
543;  knife  factory  of,  548. 

Den,  description  of  the  gambling 
of  competitive  life,  456-8. 

Dendrophori,  360,  361. 

Deorum  immortalium,  428. 

Depping,  489  and  note  54. 

Depths  unspeakable,  248,  note  3. 

De  Quincey,  quoted,  280. 

Descent,  of  the  red  color  as  a 
legacy  of  the  ancient  usages, 
492. 

Descriptiones  reliquarum,  books 
of  the  archaeologists,  459. 

Deserters,  how  treated,  70;  es¬ 
caped  from  slave  owners,  258, 
note  29. 

Desperadoes,  the  maratime,  330. 

Desperation,  of  the  slave  soldiers 
of  Tryphon  and  of  Athenion, 
265  ;  of  the  fight  of  Athenion, 
266;  of  the  slaves,  306  and 
note  80;  of  Spartacus,  at  the 
last  battle,  326-7  and  the  notes 
128,  131,  132. 

Despised  humanity,  in  formidable 
misery,  423. 

Despotism,  military,  of  Nero  and 
of  the  Caesars,  xiii. 

Destinies,  of  peoples,  524. 

Destroyed  by  lice,  230  and  note 

105. 

Destruction,  work  of  the  soldiers, 
229;  was  the  basis  of  the  plan 
of  Eunus,  549;  of  Jerusalem, 


Development,  theory  of,  55;  of 
the  growth  of  the  soul,  59; 
theory,  of  believers  in  an  im¬ 
mortal  life,  59,  63,  64,  72. 

Devices  invented  and  constructed 
by  the  unionists,  for  weapons, 
396;  of  banners,  489. 

Deviltry,  deeds  of,  by  tramps  as 
reported  by  Diodorus,  261,  in 
note  37. 

Dialecticians,  moral  impulses  of 
three,  514,  515. 

Dictionnaire  Universel,  quoting 
Maury,  92  and  note  18;  used 
further  on  Spartacus,  326. 

Differentiation,  of  gladiatorial 
functions,  278,  note  3;  which 
made  nations  out  of  isolated 
families,  281;  of  worship,  from 
Minerva  to  Jesus,  490;  the 
creeping,  525. 

Difficulties,  in  the  way  of  the  his¬ 
torian  of  labor,  500. 

Dinner,  gladiatorial  combats  at, 
277,  and  note  1. 

Dining  room,  399. 

Dinotherium  and  trilobite,  450. 

Diocletian,  empires  of,  79;  his 
persecution  of  the  early  Chris¬ 
tians,  483;  planted  poisons  in 
his  garden,  547. 

Diodorus,  138,  180;  lost  chapters 
of,  165 ;  quotation  from,  206  ; 
mutilated  scraps  of,  211;  ver¬ 
acity  of,  220  ;  on  the  temple 
of  the  Twins,  248,  note  3. 

Dion,  his  conquest  of  Syracuse, 
77;  a  friend  of  Plato,  119;  Cas¬ 
sius,  lost  books  of,  165. 

Dionysia,  what  they  were,  502  ; 


646 


INDEX. 


of  four  sorts,  at  Athens,  505. 

Dionysiates  Ch&eremoniens,  a 
sacred  divinity,  462. 

Dionysian  skilled  workmen,  503, 
and  the  notes. 

Dionysius,  of  Halicarnassus,  47, 
114,  the  tyrant  of  Syracuse, 
77;  spurned  Plato,  118;  he  en¬ 
gaged  the  caudicarii  to  put  him 
out  of  the  way,  119;  dug  the 
cavern  prisons  of  Syracuse, 
208 ;  built  the  prison  work¬ 
shops,  549. 

Dionysoi,  societies  of  the,  158. 

Dionysus,  a  god — protective  es¬ 
sence  presiding  over  skilled  la¬ 
bor,  468;  god  of  the  mechan¬ 
ics,  488. 

Dirksen,  on  the  hetairse  and  so- 
dalicia,  115;  on  the  Twelve 
Tables — says  the  Roman  trade 
unions  were  communists,  335, 
note  7. 

Disaster,  of  Demosthenes  (the 
Athenian  general),  134,  note 
1 ;  unchronicled,  of  Piso,  225 ; 
entailed  in  the  law  of  Lycur- 
gus,  527 ;  under  Spartacus,  556, 

Disbelief,  good  cause  for,  565. 

Disciples,  of  Socrates  and  Jesus, 
514. 

Discipline,  of  Orassus,  315,  note 
108. 

Discovery,  of  the  first  slaves,  49, 
note  4. 

Discrepancy,  in  Plato’s  republic, 
536. 

Discussion',  among  the  lowly,  129; 
caused  the  formation  of  a  pub¬ 
lic  opinion,  236. 

Disdain,  of  Spartacus,  312,  note 
101,  and  323,  note  121. 

Disgusted  with  wars,  499,  note  9. 

Disinherited  classes,  458. 

Dismal,  the  fear,  regarding  Eu- 
nus,  218. 

Dispensation,  of  Lycurgus,  533 

Distaste,  of  Plorus,  268. 


Distemper,  spoken  of,  by  Pliny, 
79,  note  33. 

Distinction,  the  basis  of  Plato’s 
slave  state,  522. 

Divers,  a  fishermen’s  union  of 
the  Tiber,  389,  note  1;  search¬ 
ing  for  pearls,  435. 

Divine  right,  theory  of,  531. 

Divinities,  of  the  brimstone  pool, 
248,  note  3;  of  love,  of  Soc¬ 
rates,  458,  note  18;  of  a  yield¬ 
ing  race,  480. 

Divisions,  of  the  trades  and  pro¬ 
fessions,  336  and  note  10. 

Dog-day  winds,  130,  note  96. 

Dodge,  for  the  credulous,  475. 

Dogmas,  and  inquisitorial  intol¬ 
erance,  495. 

Dome,  the  vaulted,  of  heaven, 
236. 

Domestic  establishment,  of  the 
Caesars,  429,  note  3. 

Domus  Augustalis,  507. 

Doom,  of  liberty,  233;  of  Spar¬ 
tacus,  324 ;  as  a  consequence 
of  the  law  of  Lycurgus,  526. 

Dorians,  killed  their  imperfect 
children,  53  and  note  18 ;  they 
were  the  Spartan  stock,  531, 

Downfall,  of  Rome  begun  by  Eu- 
nus  and  Gracchus,  222  ;  of  the 
Spartan  system,  537. 

Drama,  religious,  of  the  mys¬ 
teries,  92,  note  18. 

Drawn  by  lot,  315  and  n.  108. 

Dream  of  Lucian,  543. 

Dregs,  of  the  city,  302,  notes  67, 
69 ;  of  the  city  of  Rome,  quot¬ 
ing  from  Asconius,  363,  note 
15. 

Drimakos,  strike  of,  did  not  turn 
out  disastrous  to  his  cause,  xii.; 
his  prolonged  resistance,  164, 
note  3 ;  bloody  wars  of,  166 ; 
regarded  as  a  savior,  by  his 
friends,  168;  his  speech,  172; 
the  young  friend  of,  174;  re¬ 
ward  offered  for  his  head,  175, 


INDEX. 


647 


his  death,  176;  Chians  render 
homage  to  his  ghost,  177  ;  in¬ 
fluence  felt,  after  his  decease, 

517. 

Drinking  festivals,  called  anthes- 
teria,  505  ;  beer  halls  wherein 
was  first  planted  the  modern 
movement  of  labor,  573. 
Droysen,  Hellenismus,  503  and 
note  19. 

Drudgery  of  the  Helots,  537. 
Drudges,  499,  note  11. 

Druids,  their  colors,  482  sqq. 
Drumann,  the  author,  141  and 
elsewhere  much  referred  to. 
Drunkenness,  not  a  habit  of  the 
thiasos,  503,  note  20. 

Duel,  fought  between  Athenion 
and  Aquillius,  270,  271. 
Dungeons,  of  the  Sicilian  quarry 
prisons,  231;  opened  by  Eu- 
nus,  219;  more  about,  523. 
Duration,  of  wars  of  Yiriathus, 
182,  note  6;  of  the  great  slave 
war,  195 ;  comparison  of  time 
with  progress,  525. 
Dutchobers,  464. 

Dyers,  of  the  woollen  and  linen 
cloth,  418,  note  40. 

Dyes,  how  made,  483. 

E 

Eagle,  the  race  of  the,  563,  564. 
Early  Christians,  what  they  were 
struggling  for,  497 ;  their  or¬ 
ganization,  552,  553. 
Earth-born  multitudes,  79,  and 
note  32,  530. 

Earthquake,  at  Sparta,  107,  n.  49 
&164,  note  2;  of  Vesuvius,  416. 
Ebb  and  flow,  of  the  brimstone 
lake,  248,  note  3. 

Eburarii,  ivory  workers,  inscrip¬ 
tion  of,  431,  432. 

Economic  unions,  proof  of,  511. 
Eden,  garden  of,  535. 

Edict,  of  Lycurgus,  531. 


Editio  princeps  of  Vellejus  Pa¬ 
terculus,  325,  note  124. 

Education,  under  Lycurgus,  69, 
note  8 ;  Plato’s  view  of,  539 ; 
Plutarch  on,  545. 

Egoism,  479  ;  originated  saint 
hood  and  notions  of  religion 
and  of  immortality,  85. 

Egyptians,  superstition  of,  45 ; 
their  gold  mines,  138-40  ;  en¬ 
slavement  of  the  Hebrews,  39, 
40;  form  of  their  government, 
73;  food  of  their  slaves,  79. 

Elaphebolion,  505. 

Election,  of  Aquilius  and  Mar¬ 
ius,  270;  of  Licinius  Orassus, 
312;  of  officers  hindered  five 
years,  474,  note  20. 

Elephants,  used  by  the  Romans 
against  Viriathus,  186,  note  14. 

Eleusinian  mysteries,  86; ‘their 
too  absurd  exclusiveness,  88  ; 
origin  of,  88,  89,  90  ;  grievance 
against,  94;  a  popular  resent¬ 
ment,  97 ;  the  sting  of  insult, 
99;  peculiar  games,  93;  ac¬ 
cess  to  membership,  114  the; 
cause  of  dissatisfaction,  121 ; 
interwoven  with  the  ancient 
labor  troubles,  198;  humili¬ 
ating  exclusion  from,  351;  a 
brotherhood  504. 

Eleusis,  a  town  in  Attica,  near 
Athens,  87 ;  scenes  at,  89 ;  the 
crusade  to,  95;  ancient  city  of 
the  Pelasgiahs,  130;  its  orgies 
not  those  of  proletaries,  505. 

Elizabeth,  queen,  126. 

Eloquence,  of  Plato,  118,  note 
72;  of  Gracchus,  239. 

Elves,  and  urchins  at  the  brim¬ 
stone  lake,  247. 

Emancipation,  the  movement  of, 
68;  by  running  away,  70;  the 
cause  of  Christianity  a  procla¬ 
mation  of,  78;  no  mention  of, 
in  the  Iliad,  80;  movement  of, 
164;  note  2;  the  agitation  for, 


948 


INDEX. 


raging  over  the  world,  241 ;  of  Ensign,  of  the  saddle  and  bridle 
labor,  494.  makers,  485;  the  popular  one 

Emancipator,  of  Spain,  182.  was  red,  492. 

Emblems,  of  the  mysteries,  87,  Entail,  law  of,  69  ;  entailment 


88;  talismans,  mementos  and 
charms,  435;  of  Oeres  were  red ; 
469;  of  Pomona,  a  flaming  red, 
477. 

Emergence,  of  the  culture  of  the 
great  commune  system,  556. 

Empedocles,  518. 

Emperor,  considered  as  the  gov¬ 
ernment,  419. 

Employment,  of  the  unions  by 
the  state  direct,  376;  through 
Plato’s  two-fold  method,  538. 

Emulation,  Aristotle’s  plan  based 
upon,  542;  useful,  535. 

Enfranchisement,  the  treachery 
in,  107,  note  46. 

Engine  of  war,  378. 

Engineering  skill,  378. 

England,  oligarchy  of  landlords, 
in,  496. 

Engravers  and  carvers’  federa¬ 
tion  (caelatores), 367-8;  aunion 
of  die-sinkers,  368,  note  28. 

Engyon,  slaves  broke  chains  at, 
251. 

Enjoyment,  system  of,  455  with 
note  16. 

Enlightenment,  it  repudiates  un¬ 
fairness,  515,  516. 

Enna,  number  of  the  laboring 
class  massacred  at,  xii.;  a  city 
built  upon  a  height,  in  Sicily, 
88;  the  plateau  of,  149,  195; 
labor  organized  at,  198  ;  tem¬ 
ple  in  honor  of  Ceres  at,  198; 
the  scene  of  a  horribly  bloody 
murder,  202;  captured  by  the 
slaves  of  the  resident  owners, 
203-4;  attempted  recapture  by 
Piso,  224;  his  protracted  siege 
of,  224 ;  at  last  taken  by  Ru- 
pillius.  Crucifixion  and  ex¬ 
termination  of  the  inhabitants, 
228-30. 


upon  primogeniture,  558. 

Enumeration,  see  census ;  of  the 
unions  allowed  to  combine,  127 
note  87;  of  the  unions  of  Numa, 
336,  note  10;  of  trade  unions 
of  Constantine,  369. 

Environments,  Plato  entangled 
in  his,  444. 

Epaphrodite,  462. 

Ephesus  and  inhabitants  in  the 
labor  war,  235;  theatre  at,  401; 
it,  and  Hieropolis  were  strong¬ 
holds  of  the  brotherhoods,  512. 

Ephori,  the  despots  of  Sparta, 
103;  their  trained  assassins, 
104;  under-dealing  tyrants  of 
the  state,  531-2. 

Epidamnus,  no  workmen  except 
slaves,  99,  note  29,  498,  note 
3. 

Epidemics,  among  the  ancient 
slaves,  79,  of  strikes,  146. 

Epigraph,  one  near  Nazareth  de¬ 
ciphered,  503. 

Epimelites,  a  manager  or  trustee 
in  a  Greek  brotherhood,  453. 

Epirus,  destruction  of  life  and 
property  in,  179 ;  Paulus  M- 
milius  by  order  of  Rome,  en¬ 
slaved  150,000  of  the  inhab¬ 
itants,  186. 

Epistle,  of  Saint  Peter  dated  at 
Cappadocia  512. 

Epitaph,  of  wine-smokers,  383, 
note  24;  of  the  president  of  a 
bagpipers’  union,  408-9 ;  of 
the  man  who  died  while  yet  a 
youth,  383,  note  26;  of  gladi¬ 
ators  killed  in  combat  showing 
their  ages,  279,  note  5. 

Epitomies,  of  Livy,  269. 

Epoch-making  period,  552. 

Equality,  social,  a  law  of  Moses, 
40;  Christian  temple  of,  66; 


INDEX. 


649 


how  indoctrinated, 68;  perfect 
at  the  temple  of  the  Twins, 
248,  note  3;  of  birth,  443;  of 
the  rights  of  man,  652,  with 
note  69. 

Equites,  or  knights  on  horseback, 
477. 

Era-making  period,  523. 

Eranos,  of  Greece,  77 ;  together 
with  its  thiasos  existed  in  great 
numbers  in  Asia  Minor,  236 ; 
a  term  unmistakable  in  mean¬ 
ing,  448;  took  the  name  and 
inspiration  of  particular  divin¬ 
ities,  462;  festivals  of  thiasos 
and,  464;  analysis  of  both  of 
them,  502,  3,  4  and  notes;  of 
it,  and  essene,  the  same  word, 
504,  note  23 ;  eranos  and  thi¬ 
asos  one  and  the  same  associ¬ 
ation,  511,  note  41. 

Erebus,  descends  to  Hades,  89 ; 
and  the  dark  river,  90. 

Erechtheis,  priestess-assistant  to 
Orpheus  in  the  initiations,  92. 

Erecthian  spring,  130,  note  96. 

Ergastula,  the  Greek  ergasteria, 
prisons,  mostly  underground, 
139,  note  28 ;  how  used  in  Sic¬ 
ily,  209;  further  account,  219 
the  Greek  and  Latin  distinc¬ 
tions  in  Sicily,  251 ;  how  ap¬ 
plied  in  Italy  to  gladiators,  see 
prisons,  also  cf.  chapter  xii., 
on  Spartacus;  copied  from  Di¬ 
onysius  into  every  city,  549;  a 
serious  thing,  274,  note  70. 

Ergastularius,  convict  condemned 
to  fight  in  the  amphitheatres, 
406 ;  a  kind  of  gladiator,  412; 
something  like  the  ergastulus, 
ergastuli,  gladiators  changed  to 
freemen,  297. 

Erisane,  siege  of  the  town  of,  187. 

Eros,  Socrates  on  the  god  of  love, 
253  and  note  76. 

Escape,  of  Spartacus,  290,  note 
37;  of  the  people  from  Mor- 


gantion,  256,  of  Athenion,259. 

Esculapia,  462. 

Escutcheons,  monograms  etc., 
459;  in  red,  483,  note  40;  on 
some  of  them  are  found  gules 
in  Great  Britain,  486. 

Essence,  the  sacred,  of  the  brim¬ 
stone  lake,  248,  note  3. 

Essenes,  and  the  Orgeons,  493; 
conjectures  regarding  the,  501 ; 
proved  to  be  identical  with  the 
thiasotes,  504,  note  23,  their 
prophecies,  558. 

Estate,  the  paternal,  it  was  made 
criminal  for  the  slave  to  leave 
it,  69. 

Ethics,  based  upon  conscience, 
61;  a  history  of,  97. 

Ethnologist,  and  paleontologist, 
future  duties  of,  459 ;  student 
of  ethnology,  500. 

Etruria,  strike  of  the  laborers  in, 
155 ;  in  the  hands  of  the  mas¬ 
ters,  156;  Roman  standing  ar¬ 
mies  in,  211. 

Etruscan,  soothsayer,  Olenus  Ca- 
lenus,  154,  note  27 ;  people  the 
first  who  introduced  gladiato¬ 
rial  fights,  278  n.  3;  a  hard¬ 
working  and  faithful  race,  431 ; 
trinket  manufacture,  435. 

Etruscum  Fretum,  268. 

Etymology,  of  red  flag,  485. 

Etymon,  of  essenes,  is  eranos, 
504,  note  23. 

Eumenes,  and  Nusa,  234,  note  3. 

Eunuch,  revenge  of,  168-9,  and 
note  7. 

Eunus,  ten  years  war  of.  viii ; 
punishment  for  the  rebellions, 
xii.;  deeds  of,  62;  enormous 
servile  war,  89,  note  13;  an  ac¬ 
count  given,  140-166 ;  Syrian 
slave-king,  195;  how  elected, 
208 ;  the  cause  of  the  insurrec¬ 
tion  related,  198 ;  was  both  a 
magician  and  messiah,  also  a 
prophet,  199;  meeting  of  him- 


650 


INDEX, ; 


self  and  his  followers,  202 ;  a 
popular  choice  for  leader,  207 ; 
turns  60,000  prisoners  loose, 
209 ;  great  victories  enlarge  his 
territory,  214;  joins  with  the 
the  revolter  Cleon,  216;  their 
union  creates  an  immense  army 
of  slaves,  217 ;  his  supernatural 
powers,  219;  various  successes 
and  eventual  reverses,  220-31; 

•  hope  lost,  229;  perishes  in  the 
filth  of  a  Roman  prison,  of  the 
lousy  sickness,  230  and  note 
105:  interesting  history,  405; 
his  plan  that  of  extermination, 
548-9;  plan  of,  followed  by 
Aristonicus,  550;  Ceres  as  his 
goddess,  see  entire  chapter  ix. 
and  562. 

Euripides,  language  of,  in  prayer, 
563. 

Europe,  working  classes  of  57. 

Euristheneid  line  of  the  Spartan 
kings,  101 ;  Lycurgus  of  that 
stock,  531. 

Eusebius,  on  dates,  247,  note  1. 

Eve,  the  temptation  of  89. 

Evolution,  phenomena  of,  69; 
law  of,  73. 

Examination,  of  infants,  533. 

Excerpts,  Peiresc  quoted,  247, 
note  1. 

Executioner,  same  as  the  Roman 
lictor,  475,  and  note  22. 

Exercise,  the  gymnastic,  534-5. 

Exiguous  star,  490. 

Exile,  Paperna  dies  in,  243,  and 
note  41;  of  Juvenal,  563. 

Experiment,  trial  by,  525. 

Extermination,  plan  of  Eunus, 
219;  of  20,000  workingmen, 
271;  it  was  the  plan  of  slaves, 
549, ;  extinction  and,  the  cen¬ 
tral  idea  of  the  great  slave- 
king,  548. 

Eye  for  eye  and  tooth  for  tooth, 
514;  what  Plato  wanted,  518; 
sermon  on  the  mount,  549. 


F 

Fabius,  Q.  deprived  of  command, 
226. 

Fabretti,  364. 

Fagots,  used  in  escaping  block¬ 
ade  of  Orassus,  318. 

Failure,  of  ancient  governments, 
496;  of  the  Spartans,  531;  of 
tbe  great  plans,  573. 

Faith,  importance  of  a,  499  and 
note  12. 

False  translation,  of  Yellejus  Pa¬ 
terculus,  325,  note  124. 

Falsehoods  regarding  bacchantes 
and  bacchanals,  493. 

Family,  great  numbers  of  them, 
49 ;  size  of  a  patrician’s  69  ; 
a  term  substituted  for  “union” 
from  the  time  of  Augusta,  429, 
note  3 ;  the  word  property 
conveys  the  true  meaning  of, 
281,  note  11;  under  the  com¬ 
petitive  system  its  members 
will  sometimes  destroy  each 
other,  494;  the  Pagan,  497. 

Fanatic,  Eunus,  217,  note  67. 

Fanaticizing  his  Syrians,  236, 
note  8. 

Farmer,  sons  of  a  rich,  49;  and 
shepherd,  called  by  Livy  the 
bacchanalian  creature,  160  note 
38;  sufferings  of  the,  179;  or 
shepherd,  Viriathus,  180,  note 
4 ;  of  Asia  Minor  as  a  people, 
233;  chained  in  prisons,  251, 
note  11;  as  a  slave,  240 ;  Athe- 
nion,  first  mentioned,  258;  or¬ 
ganized  to  cultivate  the  ager 
publicus,  286;  lupercalian  or¬ 
gies,  a  vile  oomparison  made 
by  Cicero,  344,  note  30;  an  in¬ 
scription  of  a  farmers’  organ¬ 
ization  translated,  453,  454; 
at  the  Dionysian  sports,  505; 
how  looked  upon  by  Lycurgus, 
526;  he  is  Aristotle’s  soldier, 
541,  542  ;  inventor  of  the  an- 


INDEX. 


651 


cient  reaper,  569,  note  109;  as- 
a  free  and  organized  agricul¬ 
turist  in  Etruria,  156. 

Fasces,  bundles,  471. 

Father,  worshiped  as  a  god  after 
death,  49. 

Fatherland,  of  Eunus,  220. 
Fawning  language  of  the  unions, 
423,  note  32. 

Fear,  of  slave  insurrections,  141, 
note  33;  all-prevailing,  of  be¬ 
ing  murdered,  164,  note  2;  su¬ 
perstitions,  of  the  victorious 
slaves,  224;  of  Romans,  355. 
Feasters,  applause  of  the,  at  the 
gladiatorial  spectacles,  277, 
note  1. 

Federations  of  trades,  375,  377  ; 
in  politics  at  Pompeii,  391;  all 
over  the  land  at  the  time  of 
Christ,  392. 

Fenestella,  lost  works  of,  165. 
Ferocious  necessity,  219. 
Festival,  in  honor  of  Ceres,  87 ; 

days  of  the,  488. 

Fetichs,  659. 

Fighting  school,  289  and  notes 
36  and  37. 

Fines,  356,  357,  358. 

Fire,  the  sacred,  51;  and  murder 
300,  note  60 ;  spitting,  of  Eu¬ 
nus  described,  217  and  note 
67 ;  brands  of  torture,  229. 
Firemen,  unions  of,  447,  note  5. 
First,  Sicilian  servile  war,  224, 
note  94;  born  son,  right  of  the, 
497;  born — his  allotments  by 
paganism,  571. 

Fish,  the  Holy,  of  Diodorus,  the 
Arethusa,  221,  note  81;  fish, 
venison  and  mutton,  the  aris¬ 
tocratic  food,  386. 
Fishermen’s  unions,  inscription 
of,  113,  note  62;  their  organ¬ 
ization,  119;  combined  with  a 
divers’  union,  389,  note  1. 
Fittest,  survival  of  the,  56  ;  this 
theory  of  the  survival  creates  a 


new  philosophy  iu  reason,  57. 

Five  years’  magistrate,  389,  note 
1  ;  years’ interregnum  at  Rome 
474,  note  20  ;  men,  who  they 
were,  514. 

Flag,  of  theatrical  company,  403, 
note  6  ;  the  ancient  red,  418 ; 
origin  of  the  word,  465;  it  was 
excused  by  a  law  of  Theodo¬ 
sius,  484  ;  bearers,  484,  notes 
43  and  44. 

Flagitium,  a  derivitive  from  flag, 
471. 

Flame,  flamma,  471;  of  fire,  487 
and  note  51. 

Flamen  Pomonalis,  478. 

Flaming  red  canvass,  485. 

Flamingo,  478. 

Flaminica,  478. 

Flogged  once  a  day,  103. 

Florentine,  on  the  natural  rights 
of  man,  552,  note  69. 

Florus,  quotation  from  as  to  the 
battle  of  Silarus,  324;  also  else¬ 
where  much  quoted. 

Flower  of  the  Roman  army,  249 
and  note  7;  use  of,  at  funeral 
ceremony,  378,  note  14. 

Flute,  drum  and  wild  tumult,  244 
and  note  23 ;  player,  Salvius 
the  slave-king,  254,  note  20, 
255 ;  players,  the  famous,  458 ; 
another  mentioned,  463;  in¬ 
scription  showing  ancient  play¬ 
ing,  503,  504 ;  player  at  court 
of  Eumenes,  545;  players  of 
the  Romans  and  Greeks,  409, 
410. 

Foaming,  waters  of  the  brimstone 
lake,  248,  note  3. 

F ocus,  part  of  Roman  and  Greek 
dwelling,  54,  note  21. 

Food,  poor  quality  of,  for  slaves, 
78;  corn-grits  union  for  feed¬ 
ing  freedmen  and  slaves,  383, 
note  26;  385,  note  30 ;  of  slave 
386 ;  of  working  people,  529, 
530  ;  and  clothing,  530. 


INDEX. 


Foothold,  of  the  brotherhoods, 

512. 

Forbidden,  warfare,  by  the  plan 
of  Numa,  335;  later,  by  the 
plan  of  Jesus,  553. 

Forefathers,  our  genuine,  101, 
525. 

Foremen,  of  the  masons,  at  Je¬ 
rusalem,  373,  note  2 ;  of  the 
ancient  government  cloth  fac¬ 
tories,  called  gynseciarii,  419. 

Forests  Pomona  in  the,  477. 

Forfeiture,  case  of  a  union,  378, 
note  14. 

Forger  of  the  armor  for  slaves  in 
rebellion,  297,  note  53;  union 
of,  442,  note  10 ;  of  swords  and 
javelins,  375,  note  8. 

Forgiveness,  525. 

Forked  gibbet,  141,  note  31. 

Form  of  government  advocated 
by  the  Messiah,  496, 

Fortifications,  of  Triocala,  264; 
of  Rhegium,  318. 

Fortitude,  story  by  V alerius  Max¬ 
imus,  of  Orassus,  242,  note  20, 
of  Christ  in  the  hour  of  trial, 
562. 

Fortune,  teller,  Olenus  Oalenus, 
154,  note  27;  tellers  in  Rome, 
208;  teller,  Atlienion  as  a,  259/ 
teller,  Aurinia  as  a,  290,  note 
37 ;  telling  and  witchcraft,  414; 
Nemesis,  the  goddess  of,  413. 

Forum  Boarium,  where  was  en¬ 
acted  thefirst  gladiatorial  trag¬ 
edy,  277  and  note  1. 

Foucart,  denies  the  statements 
of  Wescher,  506;  erroneously 
imagines  the  communes  tohave 
had  no  other  object  than  reli¬ 
gion,  507;  expert  epigraphist, 

,  508. 

Foundation,  of  paganism  was  the 
competitive  systems  497. 

Fragments,  of  1st  books  in  illegi¬ 
ble  form,  271,  note  64  ;  of  Sal¬ 
lust  quoted,  306,  308,  note  84. 


France,  organized  labor  in,  128. 

Frankincense,  offerings  of,  357. 

Fratrv,  consolidated  into  a  state, 
100.  See  phratry. 

Fratricide,  the  mutual,  273. 

Free  masons,  antiquity  of  the  or¬ 
der,  124/  John  the  Baptist  one 
of  them,  557. 

Freebooter,  Gaddaeusof  the  Ne- 
brode,  252;  negotiated  with, 
by  Spartacus  to  land  his  army 
in  Sicily,  317. 

Freedmen,  39,  47,  70;  of  Aris¬ 
totle’s  time,  71;  cremated,  75; 
not  mentioned  in  the  Iliad,  80; 
a  class  at  Athens,  113 ;  arose 
out  of  slavery,  173 ;  numbers 
of,  in  Athens,  193  organiza¬ 
tions  of,  in  Greece,  Syria  etc., 
197 ;  compelled  to  beg  in  Sic¬ 
ily,  213 ;  raved  in  great  and 
murderous  revolt,  261,  note  37; 
of  Asia  Minor,  233;  Thracian, 
in  Pergamenian  labor  war  235. 
as  tramps  in  rebellion,  261 ;  in 
Rome,  as  members  of  the  un¬ 
ions  generally,  333  ;  their  en¬ 
franchisement  a  blow  to  pa¬ 
ganism,  522 ;  working  without 
clothing,  530;  ring  cleaners,  396 

Freedom,  desire  of  Spartacus,  551 

Freres  cordonniers,  421. 

Friendly  societies  of  antiquity, 
447. 

Fringe-makers,  (the  limbolarii), 
422 ;  in  gold,  486. 

Fruit  purveyors,  392. 

Fruiterers’  union,  383,  note  26, 
also  393. 

Fullers,  unions  of,  415 ;  worked 
for  the  state,  416,  note  5. 

Fulvius  Flaccus,  second  general 
sent  against  Eunus,  218. 

Funck  Brentano,  363,  note  14. 

Funeral,  ancient,  75;  origin  of 
gladiatorial  combats,  and  why, 
278,  note  3;  378. 

Furius  and  Cossirus,  defeat  of. 


IND  EX. 


653 


by  the  forces  of  Spartacus,  297. 
Furniture,  of  a  thiasos,  98,  note 
27  ;  of  the  mighty  immortals, 
432. 

Furrows  made  with  thongs,  472. 
Fustel,  de  Coulanges,  68,  75,  82; 
proves  the  statement  of  Gran- 
ier,  83;  other  proof  by,  111, 
on  origin  of  the  plebs,  343. 

G 

Gaddaeus,  treachery  of,  252. 
Grades,  the  strait  of,  183. 

Gaius,  who  wrote  the  original 
of  the  Justinian  law,  100;  was 
of  opinion  that  the  Roman  xii 
Tables  were  a  translation  from 
the  Greek,  127,  346;  Digest 
from,  112;  Orbius,  the  owner 
of  Xanthos,  143  and  note  39 ; 
Plautius,  sent  to  Spain,  185/ 
the  jurist,  discriminates  on  the 
rights  of  organization,  445. 
Galba,  his  treachery  in  Spain, 
180;  aceused  byOato,  181  and 
note  5 ;  the  trial  and  cause  of 
acquital,  181;  greedy  objects, 
in  Spain,  181;  departure  for 
Rome,  182. 

Galerius,  emperor  of  Rome,  79. 
Gallantry,  of  Athenion,  266. 
Gambling,  the  ancient  system  de¬ 
scribed,  456-7. 

Games,  the  Eleusinian,  93  ;  of 
the  Spartans,  both  sexes  were 
engaged  in,  530. 

Gannicusand  Oastus,  319,  n.  118. 
Garganus,  Mount,  battle  of,  306, 
307. 

Garlands  and  wreaths — where 
they  flourished,  503,  note  19. 
Gauls  their  ancient  reaper,  569. 
Gellius,  beats  thelieutenantCEno- 
maus,  in  battle,  306. 

Gens,  ancient  lands  belonged  to, 
348;  aristocracy  of  paganism, 
525;  families,  their  fierceness, 


527  ;  Aristotle’s  eighth  clas.j 
540. 

Gentiles,  and  proletaries,  a  civil 
duel  between  the,  345. 
Germany,  43,  71,  303 ;  organiz- 
tions  of  labor  in,  128. 

Ghosts,  origin  of,  and  beliefs  in, 
53  ;  conscience  the  originator 
of,  61 ;  ghost  of  the  dead  lieu¬ 
tenant,  Crixus,  304,  note  77. 
Giant,  Spartacus,  the  prophetic, 
294. 

Gibbet,  the  forked,  on  which  to 
crucify  slaves,  141,  note  33 ;  of 
Stratonicae,  244;  and  thongs 
of  Lucullus,  264 ;  a  description 
of  its  invention  as  a  means  of 
torture,  562. 

Girdlers,  Cicero’s  term  of  con¬ 
tempt  for  shoemakers,  380, 
note  20. 

Gladiatorial,  scene  with  Satyros, 
272;  games,  their  cruelty,  276; 
origin  in  the  funeral,  577,  note 
3;  ad  gladium  and  ad  ludum, 
explanation  made,  291;  busi¬ 
ness,  its  growth,  332. 
Gladiators,  bloody  pairing  of, 
277,  note  1;  ascertained  age 
of,  279,  note  5;  fighting  wild 
beasts  in  the  amphitheatres, 
395 ;  enumeration  of  the  dif- 
erent  kinds,  412  ;  Spartacus, 
as  a,  pitted  against  his  fellow 
men,  518. 

Gladium,  ad,  kind  of  fight,  406. 
Gluers  (glutinatores),  435,  436; 
bookbinders,  not  found  organ¬ 
ized,  435. 

Gluttons,  that  devoured  the  Holy 
Fish,  221,  note  81. 

G  oblins,  that  haunted  the  asylum 
of  the  Twins,  248. 

God,  that  slept  under  the  hearth 
of  the  heir,  69 ;  of  nature,  85 ; 
of  love,  457,  note  18;  of  Abra¬ 
ham,  and  universal  Father,  560; 
Gold,  mines  of  Egypt,  138-142. 


INDEX. 


654 


melters  poured  gold  down  the 
throat  of  Aquillius,  273;  and 
silver  forbidden  by  Spartacus, 
300  and  note  59 ;  border,  485 ; 
golden  chain,  110,  note  50; 
4iAge”  122;  Age,  of  prosperity; 
and  happiness,  376;  era,  of  a 
high  stage  of  plentitude,  pur¬ 
veying  for  the  Roman  state, 
381 ;  age,  at  Rome  covering 
a  long  vista,  438. 

Gorgias,  quoted,  538. 

Government,  social,  it  did  not 
exist,  38 ;  a  legendary  but  ex¬ 
tremely  improbable  social  form 
during  the  reign  of  Saturn, 
47  and  note  1 ;  animal  form 
of,  73;  earliest  known  plan  of, 
82;  public  servants,  or  slaves 
belonging  to  the  state  did  the 
work  of,  113;  the  ancients  em¬ 
ployed  and  patronized  unions 
of  labor,  381  and  note ;  slaves 
shown  in  note  26  by  inscrip¬ 
tions;  employ,  by  law  of  the 
Twelve  Tables,  381,  note  21; 
state  workshops,  the  fullers, 
416,  notes  5,  8 ;  ownership  of 
mills,  417;  system  that  of  gov¬ 
ernment,  442;  ideals  of,  cur¬ 
sorily  sketched,  495 ;  form  of, 
adopted  by  Lycurgus,  536. 

Gracchus,  as  described  by  Appian, 
222,  note  84 ;  struggles  of,  222; 
desperate  resistance  against, 
333:;  his  proposal  to  distribute 
the  will  of  Attalus  among  the 
needy  of  Rome,  233-4;  furi¬ 
ous  dissontions  at  his  time,  to 
break  up  the  unions,  283;  his 
friend  Blossius,  239,  474;  his 
noble  speech,  500. 

Greased  pole,  merriment  at  the 
Dionysian  sports,  505. 

Great  Spirit — speech  of  Socra¬ 
tes,  553,  note  76. 

Granary,  of  the  world,  258 ;  torn 
into  by  tramps,  261,  note  37  ; 


of  Italy,  Spartacus  in  the,  304. 

Granier,  79,  83,  111;  quotation 
from,  115;  for  thirty  years  is 
talked  down,  506. 

Granite- cutters,  368. 

Greece,  ancient,  prevailing  scene 
in,  54;  incidental  mention,  69, 
73;  slaves  of,  multiplied  within 
their  own  rank,  77;  manner  of 
food  for  the  slaves  of,  79;  the 
twelve  tribes  of  the  Amphict- 
yonic  council,  81;  prehistoric 
assassination  of  slaves,  97 ;  a 
majority  of  the  people  were  of 
the  laboring  class,  108;  the 
true  golden  Age  of  prosperit}r 
of,  lasted  about  four  hundred 
years,  123;  disastrous  strikes 
of,  varied  in  character  from 
these  of  modern  days,  133 ; 
oppressive  conditions  in,  138; 
fear  of  slave  rebellions,  141, 
note  33,  164,  note  2,  224. 

Greeks,  were  of  Aryan  stock  and 
used  the  competitive  idea,  but 
Hebrews  and  other  Semitic 
races  used  the  co-operative, 
48;  early  recognized  private 
property,  and  no  patriarchism 
found — de  Laveleye  refuted, 
68  and  note  5 ;  and  their  or¬ 
ganized  trades,  98,  99,  106; 
their  clerks  enjoyed  protective 
unions  but  they  also  had  their 
grievance,  111;  language  was 
spoken  in  Sicily,  Lower  Italy 
the  Archipelago  and  Asia  Mi¬ 
nor,  198;  great  and  mighty 
men  before  the  Roman  con¬ 
quest,  210  ;  much  in  chapters 
xxiii.  and  xxiv. 

Grievances,  of  working  people  at 
Athens,  131 ;  of  the  strikers  or 
revolters,  134. 

Grinders,  with  morters,  446. 

Groves,  meetings  held  at,  450; 
see  Pomona. 

Grater,  an  archaeologist  of  great 


INDEX . 


655 


patience  and  erudition,  342. 

9-uardian,  of  mechanics,  470;  of 
labor,  487. 

Guests,  invited  to  banquets  with 
gladiatorial  spectacles,  277  and 
note  1. 

Gueules,  in  France,  was  the  red 
color,  481. 

Guicus,  river  of  Pergamus,  149; 

Guilds,  the  mediaeval,  481. 

Gules,  in  England  and  gueules  in 
France,  481,  483 ;  on  English 
escutcheons,  486. 

Gulf,  of  Symi — the  inscriptions 
around  it,  462. 

Gulping  up  dishonorable  win¬ 
nings,  543. 

Gunpowder,  not  in  use,  396. 

Gymnastics,  took  the  place  of  in¬ 
dustrial  exercise,  496,  535. 

Gynaeciarii,  overseers  of  the  gov¬ 
ernment  cloth  factories^  419. 

Gypsies,  theory  on  the  origin  of, 

426,  427. 

H 

Habit,  tenacity  and  phenomena 
of,  483  ;  power  of,  489. 

Had  all  things  common,  556. 

Hagi  Constantios,  slab  discovered 
there  by  Vlastos,  91. 

Hair  cropped  and  body  dirty,  534. 

Hamilton,  archaeologist,  462. 

Hammerers,  their  organizations, 
399. 

Hand-looms,  417. 

Handicraftsmen,  Greek  unions 
of,  127,  note  88. 

Hangman,  same  thing  as  lictor, 
475,  note  22. 

Hannibal  &  Napoleon  compared 
with  Spartacus,  viii.;  &Scipio, 
152,  178. 

Harmodius  and  Iphicrates,  546. 

Harvester,  of  the  ancient  Gauls, 
569,  note  109. 

Hatters  and  glaziers  of  Montai- 


gut  and  St  Flour,  490. 

Head-quarters  of  ancient  slave 
traffic,  286,  note  27. 

Headlong,  down  the  rocks,  252. 

Healers,  558. 

Heaven  on  earth,  493 ;  born,  530. 

Hebrew,  different  from  other  na¬ 
tionalities,  39;  slavery  partly 
abolished,  39  ;  originator  of  so¬ 
cialism,  39 ;  fights  only  when 
attacked,  40 ;  the  only  ancient 
with  but  one  deity,  45 ;  fixed 
customs  of,  46 ;  his  excellent 
qualities  not  appreciated,  73; 
secret  association  always  char¬ 
acterized  the  race,  508 ;  willing 
to  accept  any  truth  of  sociol- 
ogy,  even  a  recognition  of  his 
celebrated  kinsman,  566-7; 

Heer,  Prof;  Oswald,  72. 

Heights,  of  Enna  stormedby  Piso, 
224;  of  Engyon,  251 ;  of  the 
Mount  Taygetus,533. 

Heinesius,  quoted  325,  note  124. 

Heliopolis,  why  so  called,  236, 
note  9. 

Heliopolitai,  the  workmen-Sun- 
worshipers,  236;  farmer  war¬ 
riors  of  Aristonicus,  550. 

Heliotry,  the  ancient.  45,  note  11. 

Hell,  paved  with  infants’  bones, 
533. 

Hellenic  peninsula,  organizations 
of,  511. 

Helots,  war  with,  98 ;  great  and 
first  known  massacre  of,  97 ;  as 
to  their  numbers,  102 ;  how 
murdered  by  nobles’  sons,  105; 
their  systematic  assassination, 
107,  note  46 ;  laboring  stock  of 
Lacedaemon,  106,  528 ;  a  pen 
picture  of  their  hideous  misery, 
107-8  and  notes;  their  descent, 
587. 

Heracleia  ,Minoa,  slave  rebellion 
at,  254 ;  and  Trcezen,  — soters 
or  saviors  from,  509;  museum 
named  from,  423. 


m 


INDEX. 


Heraclitus,  who  subdued  G-reek 
slave  strike,  144,  note  41. 

Heraldic  symbols,  483. 

Herbita,  numbers  of  property 
owners  in,  194. 

Herculaneum,  museum,  423. 

Hermes,  the  Pelasgic,  87. 

Hermias,  a  slave  of  Enna — kills 
Damophilus,  204;  escorts  the 
kind-hearted  daughter  to  place 
of  safety,  201,  note  32,  206. 

Heres  in  Argos,  544. 

Hermotius  the  eunuch,  the  re¬ 
venge  of,  168-9,  note  7. 

Herodias  the  beautiful  but  silly, 
557 ;  and  Antipas,  id.,  note  87. 

Heroic  professions,  not  belonging 
to  workers,  381. 

Herodotus,  79,  101 ;  his  rank  as 
a  historian,  168. 

Heroism,  mutual  suicide  of  Sat- 
yros  and  companions,  273;  of 
Spartacus  and  his  men  at  their 
trying  hour,  326. 

Heroistes,  462,  509. 

Heron,  the  ancient  sacred  red- 
bird,  478,  notes  and  479. 

Heroon  (temple),  to  Drimakos, 
built  by  the  Chians,  176-7. 

Hesiod,  Greek  poet,  79;  quoted, 
82  •,  was  the  first  known  labor 
agitator  and  writer,  161. 

Hetairae  or  hetaerae,  same  as  the 
sodales,  127,  note  87. 

Hideous  forest,  of  the  brimstone 
lake,  247. 

Hierarchy,  of  masons,  373,  and 
note  2. . 

Hieroglyphics,  67,  73. 

Hierokeryx,  a  priest,  453. 

Hieropoios,  manager  of  religious 
rites,  453. 

Highlanders’  bagpipe,  408. 

Hill  of  Venus,  the  battle  of,  183. 

Himation  and  chiton,  473,  476; 
with  ehlamys,  toga,  481 

llippareh,  Pisistratides  the,  546. 

Hippodrome,  chariot  -  running, 


foot-racing  etc.  408. 

Hiram,  architect  of  Solomon’s 
temple,  123-5;  chief  of  trade 
union,  124;  another,  king  of 
Tyre,  125,  note  81 ;  the  archi¬ 
tect,  skilled  in  building  crafts, 
373. 

Historian,  seldom  mentions  the 
efforts  at  reform,  69,  71 ;  his 
praise  of  royal  lineage,  531. 

History,  students  of,  divided  into 
three  classes,  37;  of  labor  be¬ 
gins  with  manumissions,  67; 
the  great  ones  copied,  times 
without  number,  436;  from  a 
sociologic  standpoint,  541, 

Histrionic  entertainments,  220 ; 
tablet  found  at  Prseneste,  403; 
unions,  402,  403,  notes  1,  6. 

Hive,  of  trade  unions — all  antiq¬ 
uity,  444;  of  labor,  490;  of 
free  labor  organizations,  Naz¬ 
areth,  513. 

Holdings,  of  the  Spartan  lands, 
a  summary,  531. 

Holy  Wars,  the,  81 ;  Fish,  Are- 
thusa,  221,  note  81. 

Homotaphoi,  common  table  com¬ 
munes,  510. 

Homer,  quotation  from,  110;  the 
slave  system  of  his  time,  529. 

Hondurus  aborigines  of,  93  n.  18. 

Honey-bees,  Cicero  on  Plato, 
118,  note  72. 

Honorable,  discharge  of  soldiers, 
107,  note  46 ;  to  acknowledge 
an  error,  564-5  and  note  106. 

Hoplomachi,  412. 

Horse,  of  Spartacus,  327. 

Hors  de  combat,  268,  411. 

Horticulture,  Diocletian’s  work 
on,  547. 

Hostages,  Oarthagenian,  and  the 
slaves,  revolt  of,  151,  note  18. 

Hours,  of  labor,  530. 

Houses,  of  the  ancient  Greeks 
and  Romans,  54;  house  finish¬ 
ers’  union,  370,  note  34;  house 


INDEX. 


657 


of  Oicero  burned  499,  note  12; 
of  Socrates,  561 ;  -hold  and 
toy-gods,  429. 

Hudson  edition,  of  Yellejus,  on 
Spartacus,  quoted,  325,  note 
124. 

Hues,  486. 

Human  equality,  doctrine  of  57 ; 
beings,  as  tools,  567. 

Hunger,  and  cannibalism  at  Tau- 
r oman  ion,  226. 

Hunter,  Viriathus  styled  a,  180, 
note  4  ;  of  ostriches,  sparrows 
etc.,  393,  294;  of  Pompeii,  411, 
of  wild  animals,  411. 

Hurled  down  the  precipice,  227. 

Huts,  hovels  and  tents  of  the 
Britons,  488 

Hybla  and  Macella,  269,  and  the 
notes  57,  58. 

Hydra,  519. 

Hymeneal  reciprocity,  536. 

Hyponicus,  slave  owner,  137. 

Hypothesis  of  Weseher,  506. 

Hypsseus,  defeated  by  Achaeus 
and  Cleon,  217;  was  a  Roman 
general,  destroyed  by  Eunus 
in  the  slave  war,  218. 

I 

Iambe,  slave  of  Ceres,  130  n.  93. 

Iconoclasm,  traced  back  to  or¬ 
ganized  resistance,  x. 

Ideal,  518;  state  of  Plato,  530; 
of  Jesus,  553 ;  Plato  the  father 
of  the  ideal  state,  554. 

Idol  worship,  introduction  into 
Christianity,  viii.;  origin  of,  x  ; 
the  idols,  44,  and  428-36. 

Ignominious  cross,  265;  punish¬ 
ment-in  what  countries,  498-9. 

Incas,  massacres  of  the,  102. 

Iliad,  antiquity  of  the,  80. 

Ilias.  or  period  of  calamity,  261, 
note  37. 

Illegitimacy,  what  constituted, 
344.  note  28. 


Image  worship,  viii.;  making  by 
trade  unions,  123 ;  makers,  un¬ 
ions  of,  in  Athens,  127 ;  mak¬ 
ing  elsewhere,  362  and  n.  11; 
makers,  their  business  and  or¬ 
ganization,  429;  2,000  images 
and  statues  taken  at  siege  of 
Volsini,  431;  makers,  chapter 
xix.,  pp.  428-36;  sculptured, 
of  a  female,  436;  palladiums, 
amulets,  talismans  incantations 
etc.,  556. 

Imaginifex,  429. 

Immaculate  conception,  147, 559. 

Immolation,  of  gladiators,  278, 
note  3. 

Immortality,  theory  concerning, 
59,  60,  90 ;  opinions  of  Aristo¬ 
tle,  Lucretius,  Darwin  on,  62; 
of  the  soul  denied  by  a  philos¬ 
ophy,  62 ;  crowning  problem, 
66;  originated  by  egoism,  85; 
further  opinions,  90,  91;  the 
working  classes  too  mean  to 
possess  a  soul,  95. 

Immortals,  the  most  powerful  of 
whom  were  Jupiter,  Ceres, 
Vulcan  etc.,  429. 

Imperishable  laws,  526. 

Imprints,  as  best  arguments,  450. 

Incantations,  556. 

Incendiorum  collegium  or  fire¬ 
men’s  union,  447,  note  5. 

Incentive  to  steal  does  not  exist 
in  communism,  534. 

Incestuous  liason  of  Antipas  and 
Herodias,  557,  note  87. 

Indo-Europeans,  original  home 
of,  48,  55;  their  laboring  class 
organized.  68,  73,  82 ;  strange 
beliefs  of,  75;  communism  of 
property  among,  80 ;  a  demo¬ 
cratic  people,  122;  an  atrophy 
that  benumbed  the  race,  494. 

Indulgence,  masters  ’  accorded 
right  of,  with  female  slaves, 
147,  note  8;  in  voluptuousness 
and  interchange  of  loves,  497. 


•68 


INDEX. 


Initiation,  into  the  Mysteries,  92, 
of  Alexander,  545. 

Innocence  of  Spartacus,  290  and 
note  37. 

Innovation,  of  Lycurgus  etc.,  69; 
introduction  of,  would  make 
Clermont  uninhabitable,  485-6. 

Innumerable  new  unions  created, 
301,  note  66. 

Inscriptions,  the  genuine  ,  men¬ 
tioned  in  book,  xi.;  evidence 
of  the,  73;  of  the  Eleusinians, 
87;  an  interesting  one,  98;  ev¬ 
idence  of,  112,  205;  specimen 
by  Aquillius,  271 ;  the  same, 
with  inscription  verbatim,  291, 
note  39 ;  true  history  revealed 
by,  342 ;  one  found  at  Lanu- 
vium,  showing  rules,  353-58; 
at  Pompeii,  390-2;  law  com¬ 
pelling  their  registration,  426; 
they  prove  the  red  color  not 
to  have  been  warlike,  490 ;  one 
found  twenty  miles  from  Naz¬ 
areth,  503. 

Inspection  of  candidates,  510. 

Insubordination  of  the  soldiers 
of  Spartacus,  306,  note  80,  315; 
malignant  spirit  of,  321. 

Insurrection,  86;  of  slaves  which 
frightened  the  masters,  94 ;  a 
great  cause  of  fear,  141,  note 
33;  of  Oarthagenian  hostages 
and  the  slaves,  151,  note  18; 
at  Praeneste,  153 ;  in  the  inte¬ 
rior  of  Asia  Minor,  235;  great¬ 
est  known  in  history,  413;  of 
Sicilian  slaves,  404,  see  chap¬ 
ters  ix.  and  xi.;  of  slaves,  that 
was  feared  by  Attalus,  546. 

Intrenchment,  of  Crassus,  315, 
note  109. 

Intrigues  that  filched  the  beau¬ 
tiful  color,  480. 

Inventions,  372  ;  the  serarii  un¬ 
derstood  alloys.  372 ;  the  car¬ 
penters  made  the  battering- 
ram,  379,  488,  note  53;  Mi¬ 


nerva,  the  protecting  divinity 
of,  470;  discovery  of  the  now 
in  nature,  526  ;  implements  of 
torture,  562;  other  doings,  569; 
of  the  ancient  farmers,  their 
reaper,  569  and  note  109 ;  let 
them  be  nationalized,  573. 

Inventory,  of  Demosthenes,  548. 

Invincible,  force  of  Eunus,  219. 

Iphicrates,  a  low-born,  546. 

Irascible  world,  494 ;  a  war  spirit, 
521;  destructive  and  bloody, 
556. 

Irascibility,  74;  and  vengeance, 
269;  coupled  with  concupis¬ 
cence  and  sympathy,  515. 

Iron  workers,  373 ;  miners  fed¬ 
erated  with  the  forgers,  at  far 
distant  Rome,  442;  the  fam¬ 
ous  money  made  of,  532. 

Ishmaelites,  belonging  to  the 
Semitic  family,  48. 

Isis,  of  the  therapeut,  562. 

Ismenias,  and  Antisthenes  the 
cynic,  544. 

Isomachus,  on  prayer,  563. 

Italian,  schools  of  painting,  101; 
insurrection,  294,  note  47. 

Italy,  ancient,  prevailing  scenes 
in,  54;  slaves  of,  77 ;  Greek 
was  spoken  in  lower  part,  197. 

Ivory,  and  gold  in  the  crysele- 
phantine  colossus,  431 ;  the 
ivory- workers,  431,  432. 

J 

Jack-at- all- trades,  the  ragpicker 
of  Italy,  423. 

Jack  Cade  559. 

Janus,  temple  of,  closed  by  king 
Numa,  335;  same  thrown  open 
after  his  death,  375. 

Jagatnatha.  90. 

Jargon,  of  dogmas  and  inquisito¬ 
rial  intolerance,  495. 

Javelin,  only  allowed  to  nobles* 
475. 


INDEX. 


659 


Jealousies,  among  the  revolters, 
229;  of  Tryphon,  264,  note  42; 
and  revenge,  268;  of  Orixus, 
against  Spartacus,  304 ;  see  in¬ 
subordination. 

Jerusalem,  temple  of,  123;  trade 
unions  at,  373,  note  2  ;  its  de¬ 
struction,  566-7. 

Jesting  dandies,  403,  note  6. 

Jesus,  his  plan  a  basis  of  hope, 
57,  122 ;  a  workingman,  152—3' 
openly  preached  against  slavery 
though  indirectly,  173;  revo¬ 
lution  of,  237 ;  in  the  act  of 
creating  an  association,  494; 
nobody  asks  more  than  he  did, 
495;  the  labors  of,  501;  one 
of  five  remarkable,  personages, 
514;  not  a  Platonist,  517 ;  his 
rules,  544;  yet  on  trial,  525; 
planted  the  successful  seed, 
552. 

Jews,  easily  grasp  socialism,  43; 
their  purity,  44,  45 ;  without 
a  land  of  their  own,  46 ;  a  race 
of  the  Semitic  family,  48  ;  the 
mechanics,  373,  Sidonian,  373 
and  note  2;  pierced  the  ears 
of  their  slaves,  385,  note  30 ; 
must  eventually  become  proud 
of  Christ,  566-7. 

John  the  Baptist,  557. 

Joiners,  (intestinarii),  370. 

Josephus,  and  his  account  of  the 
tradesmen,  373  and  note  2. 

Journey  through  Gaul  to  Britain, 
488. 

Jove,  see  Zeus  and  Jupiter. 

Jubilee,  a  coronation,  463  and 
plate  ;  parades,  feasts  and  red 
flags  at,  484. 

Judea  (Judaea),  a  farming  coun¬ 
try  in  ancient  times,  46 ;  ora¬ 
tor  of,  sprung  from  the  laboring 
class,  493. 

Jugglers  organized,  111. 

Jugs,  or  pots  of  milk,  399;  made 
by  the  tyrant  Agathocles.  545. 


Julius,  Obsequens  quoted,  304, 
Epaphra,  433;  see  Caesar. 

Junkmen,  422,  425. 

Jupiter,  the  father  of  Proserpine. 
88 ;  exposed  a  conspiracy  o 
rebels,  148;  A'tabyrius,  whe 
he  was,  169,  note  10,  462 ;  sec 
Zeus. 

Jus  coeundi,  or  law  permitting 
free  organization,  283,  425; 
jus  gentium,  294,  note  48. 

Justinian,  emperor,  100;  see  also 
Digest. 

K 

Kapila,  plagiarized  by  Aristotle, 
117 ;  laid  the  foundation,  514. 

Karpetania,  redeemed  by  Viri- 
athus,  185. 

Kent,  ( Oantiopolis),  487;  Mid¬ 
dlesex,  and  London,  559. 

Key,  to  the  success  of  Athenion, 
Eunus,  Tryphon  and  others, 
274,  note  70. 

Kind,  taxes  collected  in,  441. 

King’s  fool,  of  Eunus,  230  ana 
403,  note  6. 

Kitchen,  presided  over  by  the 
triclinarch,  399;  co-operative, 
533. 

Knives  and  cudgels,  292,  note  41. 

Knights,  on  horseback,  477. 

Koinon,  and  other  names  for  the 
communes,  501. 

Kicks,  as  an  expression  of  thanks, 
530. 

Kidnapers,  286,  note  27 ;  were 
the  buccaneer  freebooters  of 
Canaan,  498. 

Kraton,  inscription  by,  98,  n.  27 
priest  of  a  labor  commune,  98. 

L 

Labor,  movement,  its  aims,  38; 
no  manual,  among  patricians  of 

early  days,  39;  j  ::  ty,  founder* 


6C0 


INDEX, ; 


of.  43;  inculcations  degrading, 
52;  problem,  001111361*40  those 
studying  the,  60;  swelling  le¬ 
gions  of,  62;  its  products  are 
in  the  hands  of  monopolies,  62; 
ancient,  generally  interlinked 
with  religion,  64  ;  history  of, 
begins  with  man  umissions,  67; 
Semitic  classes  of,  organized, 
68;  unions  of,  their  laws  re¬ 
corded  on  slabs  of  stone,  71 ; 
scarcity  of  records  of  ancient, 
71;  taint  upon,  72,  101,  110; 
unions  recognized  by  Socrates 
and  Aristotle,  74;  movement, 
unions  and  agitations,  77,  79, 
80,  96;  Ceres  protected  its  pro¬ 
ducts,  89 ;  socially  degraded,  95  ; 
unions  of  great  antiquity,  111; 
how  debased,  112;  laws  of  So¬ 
lon,  113 ;  the  Greek  brother¬ 
hoods,  114,  130;  source  of  a 
thinking  success,  117 ;  leading 
the  world,  118;  a  reputed  dis¬ 
grace,  120 ;  efforts  to  suppress 
the  organizations  of,  157;  so¬ 
cieties  of,  in  Hesiod’s  time, 
162,  the  first  war  of,  142;  bu¬ 
reau  of  labor  of  the  U.  S.  and 
its  report,  146 ;  brotherhoods, 
not  strictly  religious  societies, 
170;  had  prophets  and  messi- 
ahs,  173;  organization  in  Spain 
shown  by  her  antiquities,  179; 
connected  with  the  mysteries, 
198;  as  a  problem  in  the  time 
of  the  Gracchi,  222  ;  unions, 
did  the  work  of  collecting  the 
taxes  for  the  state,  437 ;  wor¬ 
thy  of  pay — the  laborer  worthy 
of  his  hire — 558. 

Laborer,  wages  paid  the  ancient, 
137 ;  all  the  products  were  not 
Pagan,  572 ;  left  out  340,  note 
17,  348;  and  he  rebelled  and 
killed  them,  573. 

Lacedaemon,  or  Sparta,  79,  103; 
slaves  of,  98. 


Laconians,  or  Perioeci,  102,  531 , 
the  Spartan  branch,  533. 

Ladies,  the  youths  introduced  to 
the,  534. 

Laenatus,  story  of  Cicero,  241, 
note  18. 

Laenus  and  Rupilius,  who  perse¬ 
cuted  the  Gracchi,  225. 

Laeocrates,  his  interest  in  a  com¬ 
mune,  507. 

Lake,  of  brimstone,  248,  note  3; 
near  Croton,  whose  waters  are 
sometimes  pure  and  sometimes 
salt,  320. 

Lamb,  of  sacrifice  for  the  thiasos, 
98,  note  27;  463,  503. 

Lanatus,  a  Roman  tribune,  145. 

Land,  equally  divided  by  Lycur- 
gus,  69';  tenure,  ancient  sys¬ 
tems,  80;  division  of,  by  Ly- 
curgus,  101,  532;  belonged  to 
the  state  in  Greece,  109 ;  own¬ 
ers,  the  number  of,  in  Rome, 
192  ;  in  Athens,  193 ;  Sparta, 
101,  532;  the  Land  of  Canaan, 
496 ;  speculation,  after  the  Ro¬ 
man  conquests,  499 ;  -lords,  an 
imperious  oligarchy  of,  496; 
still  holding  the  monopoly  of, 
497. 

Language,  of  Hebrews,  39;  the 
product  of  the  low- boras,  568. 

Lanuvium,  the  inscription  of,  357. 

Laodicia,  stronghold  of  the  broth¬ 
erhoods,  511-12. 

Lapicklinae,  221. 

Lares,  or  daemons,  48;  supersti¬ 
tion,  51;  remains  of  the  dead 
still  alive  and  active,  53,  note 
20,  and  70,  note  12;  lar  famil- 
iaris,  61;  fear  and  honor  of 
the,  425. 

Lassalle,  43. 

Last  supper,  562. 

Latifundia,  of  Clonius,  253, 

Latium,  in  Italy,  149. 

Laurium,  in  Attica,  strike  not 
unsuccessful,  xii.;  strike  at 


INDEX. 


661 


the  silver  mines,  134 ;  contrac¬ 
tors  at,  136  ;  Athenian  silver 
works,  134,  138,  493. 

Laveleye,  M.  de,  55,  68. 

Laws,  of  Moses,  39,  40,  43,  44; 
the  Jewish,  recorded  in  the 
Pentateuch,  40  ;  ancient  laws 
of  usurpation,  50;  the  laws 
of  marriage  among  freedmen, 
77;  of  entail,  69,  102;  those 
recorded  on  slabs  of  stone,  71; 
of  heredity,  96;  of  the  Twelve 
Tables,  100;  of  Solon,  100, 
113,  127  and  note  87;  of  Ly- 
curgus,  101,  104,  109,  525  and 
full  account,  530,  sqq.,  of  pri¬ 
mogeniture,  102;  of  Numa 
Pompilius,  109,  126;  of  Ama- 
sis  115;  the  conspiracy,  120, 
see  conspiracy ;  of  organization 
generally,  127;  Roman  enforce¬ 
ment  of  the  slave  laws,  178; 
of  Solon  borrowed  from  Egypt 
245,  note  23;  of  suppression, 
283,  note  15;  law  of  lust,  147; 
compelling  inscriptions,  425-6. 

Lawgiver,  497,  529. 

Learning  and  Art,  two  young 
females  of  Lucian’s  dream,  543. 

Lebanon,  mountains  of,  236. 

Legality,  of  will  of  Attalus,  234. 

Legend,  weird,  of  the  brimstone 
lake,  248,  note  4. 

Legerdemain,  of  Eunus,  217  and 
note  67. 

Leges  populi,  340. 

Legion,  number  of  soldiers  in  a, 
312;  of  Honor,  484. 

Leisure,  the  necessity  of,  accord¬ 
ing  to  Aristotle,  542. 

Leleges,  Chios  a  primeval  home 
of  the  163. 

Lentulus,  0.  Cornelius,  praetor  in 
Setia,  151;  Piso,  Rupillins,218; 
third  man  sent  against  Eunus, 
218 ;  Batiatus,  teacher  of  the 
games,  285;  proprietor  of,  in¬ 
comes  to,  289  and  note  36; 


the  consul,  dogging  Spartacus, 
307;  disaster  of,  311 ;  mystery 
as  to  fate  of,  311;  and  Pop- 
licola,  407. 

Leo  X.,  Pope,  125. 

Leonardo  da  Vinci,  544. 

Leontini,  number  of  land  owners 
at,  194. 

Le  Play,  70. 

Leslie,  Dr.  Cliffe,  his  opinion, 111. 

Lexicographers,  obliged  to  con¬ 
sult  the  inscriptions,  379. 

Lexington,  flag  of,  492 

Liason,  of  Antipas  and  Herodias 
in  Judea,  557,  note  87. 

Lice,  Eunus  devoured  by,  230, 
note  105. 

Licinian  law,  156,  222,  note  84; 
Stolo,  474. 

Lictor,  of  Tryphon,  264,  note  43 ; 
same  as  executioner,  475,  note 
22 ;  fierce  military  pageant  of, 
475 ;  his  functions,  475. 

Lightf  oot,  quoting  Digest  on  the  , 
power  of  life  and  death,  294, 
note  48;  on  the  Essenes,  504, 
note  23. 

Lilybseum,  where  situated,  258; 
attacked  by  Athenion,  260  and 
note  35. 

Line  of  circumvallation,  against 
Spartacus,  318. 

Linen  weavers’  union,  416. 

Lions,  tigers,  leopards,  wolves, 
bears  in  the  ring,  188-90  and 
plate,  395  ;  and  other  wild  an¬ 
imals,  411;  crouching  in  front 
of  Cybele,  463. 

List,  of  trade  unions  369. 

Liticen,  or  clarion,  408. 

Livy,  account  of  Spartacus  by, 
but  lost,  211 ;  other  mention, 
79,  146,  148,  152;  he  spurned 
the  bacchanals,  159. 

L.  Domitius,  horrible  cruelty  of, 
13G;  Furius,  a  Roman  consul, 
157 ;  Postumius,  a  praetor  in 
charge  of  Apulia,  159. 


662 


INDEX. 


Lokrians,  did  not  tolerate  slav¬ 
ery,  1G9;  were  the  commun¬ 
ists  of  Italy,  194. 

London,  the  bed-rock  of  modern 
socialism,  488;  leader  of  the  la¬ 
bor  movement,  559. 

Long-lived  unions,  461. 

Lord’s  prayer,  562. 

Lords,  forced  to  fight  as  gladia¬ 
tors,  308,  note  85. 

Lordship,  and  slavery,  first  estab¬ 
lished  condition  of  society,  54. 

Loss,  of  the  books,  262, 268,  269; 
of  Livy,  298 ;  of  Sallust,  299 ; 
how  the  art  of  dyeing  was  lost, 
479-80, 

Lots,  the  Spartan  division  of, 
101,  102,  530. 

Lottery,  booths,  taverns  etc.,  of 
Theophrastus,  543. 

Lousy  sickness,  230,  note  105. 

Love,  incomparable,  inscription, 
342,  note  21 ;  Eros  the  god  of, 
whom  Socrates  worshiped,  553 
note  76. 

Low-born,  inferior  to  a  dog,  244, 
note  22,  see  slave,  slavery. 

Lowly,  ancient,  60;  nature  of 
discussion  among  the,  129; 
socialistic  atmosphere  of,  513. 

Lucanians,  under  Cleptius,  264. 

Lucanus,  79. 

Lucian,  dream  of,  543. 

Lucretius,  compared  with  Vogt, 
Spencer  and  Darwin,  59;  his 
celebrated  apothegm,  60;  his 
belief  regarding  the  soul,  62  ; 
the  doctrine  of,  129  ;  a  Roman 
tribune,  145  ;  an  etymological 
reference,  471. 

Lucullus,  object  of,  in  Spain,  181; 
leaves  Spain,  182 ;  L.  Lioinius, 
sent  to  Sicily,  264;  routed  by 
Athenion,  267 ;  a  third,  of  the 
same  name,  in  war  with  the 
gladiator,  319,  uote  117  ;  ap¬ 
proaches  Spartacus  from  one 
side  and  Rompey  from  another, 


321;  drives  Spartacus  from  th« 
port  of  Brundusium,  323. 

Lueders’  Skilled  Mechanics  of  the 
Bacchanals,  503. 

Ludi,  and  the  incorporated  com¬ 
munes,  404 ;  cercenses,  410. 

Lugdunum,  (Lyons),  shipping 
produce  from,  440. 

Luna,  marble,  368. 

Lupanariorum  collegium,  447. 

Lupercalia,  344,  note  30. 

Lusitania,  prosperity  of,  before 
the  Roman  conquests,  179 
see  chapter  viii.,  pp.  178-190, 
Viriathus. 

Luxuries,  prohibited  by  Sparta¬ 
cus,  302,  not©  70. 

Lybian,  slave  traffic,  286,  note 
27. 

Lycurgus,  law  of,  62,  69,  94,  101. 
103,  139  ;  a  model  and  a  mon¬ 
ster,  102;  recognized  aristoc¬ 
racy,  497;  a  review  of  him 
526,  sqq. ;  was  attacked  and 
blinded,  527  ;  what  he  accom¬ 
plished,  532;  his  doctrines  de¬ 
tailed,  559. 

Lyons,  unions  of  collectors,  439, 
note  3  ;  connected  with  Rome 
by  water,  440. 

Lysias,  his  shield  factory,  547. 

Lytton,  Sir  Edward  Bulwer,  his 
opinion  as  to  gladiators,  289. 

M 

M.  Acilius  Glabro,  Roman  prae¬ 
tor,  157. 

Ma,  a  divinity,  the  cult  of,  215, 
note  63. 

Macedonia,  mines  in,  137;  an 
uprising  in,  142. 

Macella,  a  great  battle  between 
Athenion  and  Rupillius,  270 
its  castle,  conjectures  as  to  its 
geographical  situation,  270. 

Machinists,  union  of,  shown  by 
an  inscription,  378,  note  14; 


INDEX. 


663 


machine  adjusters,  378 ;  oth¬ 
ers,  of  the  plays,  403,  note  6; 
at  the  theatres,  570. 

Mackenzie,  and  the  Twelve  Ta¬ 
bles,  337,  339. 

Macrobius,  his  arguments  against 
slavery,  141,  note  34 ;  quota¬ 
tion  from,  146,  164,  note  2. 

Madonna,  or  Notre  dame,  486. 

Magician,  Eunus  the,  199,  and 
note  27. 

Magister  sacrorum,  452. 

Magnetism,  of  Lycurgus,  532. 

Maidens,  the  celebrated  Spartan, 
530,  534;  before  the  ephori, 

535. 

Malfeasance,  225,  note  94 ;  of 
Nerva,  in  office,  250-51,  note 
13;  of  Lucullus,  274. 

Mamelukes,  massacre  of  the,  102. 

Mamertine  caves,  230. 

Man,  original  division  of,  into 
classes,  39. 

Manes,  jealous,  omniscient  and 
on  guard  53  ,of  Crixus-Sparta- 
cus’  revenge  by  forcing  his  vic¬ 
tims  to  fight  as  gladiators,  308, 
309,  406;  as  tutelary  saints, 
420. 

Man-hunt,  after  Silarus,  286,  note 
27 ;  for  remnants  of  routed 
army  of  the  gladiators,  als  o  for 
the  pirates,  330. 

Mania,  for  organization,  447. 

Manlius  ( Cneus  ),  defeat  of,  by 
Spartacus,  314. 

Mantle,  the  purple,  of  Trypbon, 
264,  note  43. 

Manufactories,  their  wares  and 
the  collectors,  439 ;  of  arms  of 
war  operated  by  the  brother¬ 
hoods,  123;  by  the  freedmen, 
218;  establishments  in  the  em¬ 
perors’  palaces,  419;  of  colors 
in  red,  how  suppressed,  480; 
others,  of  the  armaments  of 
warfare,  537. 

Manumissions,  the  dawn  of,  48; 


era  of,  51 ;  idea  of,  56,  67-9, 
74, 112,  526;  history  of  labor 
begins  with,  67-8;  movement 
and  progress  of,  541. 

Manure,  straw  for,  569,  note  109. 

Manuscript,  the  original  of  Vel- 
lejus  Paterculus,  325,  note  124. 

Maringues,  486. 

Marauder,  of  the  Nebrode,  Gad- 
dseus,  252. 

Marble,  cutters’  organizations, 
127 ;  quarries,  368;  of  Brioude 
had  red  devices,  490. 

Marius,  0.  election  of,  consul  at 
outbreak  of  second  Sicilian  la¬ 
bor  war,  248;  and  Julius,  un¬ 
ions  suppressed,  301,  note  65. 

Markets,  of  the  slave  traffic,  286 
and  note  27. 

Marriage,  under  the  Lycurgan 
law,  527;  form  of,  in  Sparta, 
535. 

Mars- like  warrior  Spartacus,  297, 
note  55. 

Martyrdom,  at  Tauromanion, 
227;  and  incalculable  results, 
514,  525. 

Marx,  43. 

Masons,  of  the  organized  build¬ 
ing  trades  at  Rome,  367;  stone 
masons  of  Rome,  368,  369 ;  at 
Jerusalem,  373,  note  2. 

Massachusetts,  its  early  flag  was 
red,  492. 

Massacre,  of  Stone  Henge,  and 
others,  102;  of  the  Helots,  115 ; 
at  Ancyle,  251;  and  crucifix¬ 
ion  of  the  slaves,  299;  of  the 
Hebrews  at  Jerusalem,  567. 

Materfamilias,  conduct  of  the, 
52,  her  virtue  beyond  suspi¬ 
cion,  74;  kept  herself  secluded 
at  home,  78  note  30;  worked 
at  the  spinning  wheel,  108. 

Mauritania,  sends  a  force  to  fight 
A  then  ion,  260,  note  35. 

Maury,  critic  on  Eleusinian  mys¬ 
teries,  92. 


664 


INDEX. 


Mausoleums  and  sarcophagi,  429. 

Maw,  the  rock-lined,  of  Tayge- 
tus,  533. 

Maxim,  theorem,  axiom,  509-10; 
saying,  eye  for  eye  etc.,  493. 

Maximian,  kills  Crispin  aad  Cris- 
pinian,  421;  persecutions,  485. 

Meals,  in  common  at  Tarentum, 
287,  note  28;  see  table. 

Measures,  of  Lycurgus,  532. 

Mechanics,  39 ;  progress  in,  was 
unendurable  to  the  pagan  sys¬ 
tem,  568;  skilled,  of  the  bac¬ 
chanals,  see  Lueders’  Minerva. 

Megallis,  wife  of  Damophilus  and 
the  cruel  slaveholder,  201;  her 
fearful  death,  204-5 ;  plunged 
headlong  over  a  precipice,  405 
and  406. 

Megapolis,  theatre  of,  401. 

Megaron,  temple  of,  91;  95;  130. 

Mellow  garden  for  the  first  sow¬ 
ings,  573. 

Membership,  granted  the  slaves, 
98  ;  note  27,  169,  355. 

Memento,  talisman,  incantation, 
charms,  palladiums,  463;  556  ; 

Memphis,  Egypt,  112,  note  56. 

Men-Tyrannus,  a  god,  143;  note 
39;  men  great  and  good,  525  ; 
and  women  the  tools  of  labor, 
568. 

Menecrates,  463. 

Menestheus,  the  demagogue  of 
Athens,  99,  note  28. 

Menial  work,  498. 

Menis,  son  of  Menistheus  of  Her¬ 
aclitus,  454. 

Mercenaries,  slaves  used  as,  77; 
a  trade  union  of,  119;  Thracian 
freedmen  as,  235;  and  huck¬ 
sters,  of  Theophrastus,  542, 

Merchants,  unions  of,  98;  393 ; 
flags,  487. 

Mercury,  his  visit  to  Erebus,  89. 

Merula,  praetor  and  tribune,  151; 
suppressed  the  slave  revolt  id. 
and  note  18;  defeats  a  second 


and  similar  insurrection,  153. 

Messana,  spared  by  slaves,  221. 

Messenian  war  with  Sparta,  98; 
103. 

Messiah,  slaves  believed  in  a,  173; 
Eunus  a,  199  ;  also  Athenion, 
259  ;  and  Salvius  or  Tryphon, 
263 ;  soters,  worshipers  of  the, 
462 ;  the  greater  one,  how  He 
found  things,  493;  mellowed 
and  in  readiness  for  the,  513; 
Eunus  the,  acquainted  with 
secret  organization,  512. 

Messiahships,  558. 

Metagenes,  Greek  sculptor,  131. 

Metal,  vessel-makers,  445  ;  pro¬ 
scribed  by  Lycurgus,  69,  n.  8. 

Metanira,  mother  of  Demophon, 
89. 

Metaurus,  battle  of,  193. 

Metroon,  temple  of  Cybele,  also 
goddess  of  the  Piraeus,  509. 

Mevaniola,  where  a  ragpickers' 
union  was  found,  422. 

Mexico,  ancient  people  of,  93. 

Microcosms,  of  a  far-future  state, 
459;  inapplicable  except  for 
the,  493. 

Middle,  men,  the  first  of  Rome, 
340;  ages,  461. 

Milk,  and  milk-tasters,  399 ;  the 
ancient  milkmen,  399. 

Millers,  wages  paid  the,  137;  they 
were  called  pistores,  349;  and 
bakers’  union  (sacred),  445; 
other  brotherhoods  of,  446. 

Mills,  did  the  Roman  state  own 
woolen  mills?  417. 

Milo,  the  pugilist,  323;  note  120. 

Mimics,  communes  of  Roman, 
112,  note  58;  the  unions  of, 
see  chapter  18 ;  pp.  401;  sqq., 
220;  inscription  of,  403;  n.  6, 

Miners,  insurrection  of,  100;  of 
copper,  375;  their  unions,  442, 
note  10. 

Minerva,  goddess  of  the  thiasote, 
114;  temple  of,  137  ;  statue 


INDEX. 


665 


431;  the  Lindienne,  450,  482; 
the  Athena,  goddess  of  man¬ 
ual  labor,  468;  with  Apollo, 
etc.,  488;  feast-days  and  colors 
of,  and  when,  490. 

Mines,  belonged  to  the  state,  136; 
sufferings  of  the  workers  in, 
138 ;  rebellious  slaves  sent  to 
the,  158;  of  iron,  373,  note  3. 
Mirmillion,  a  kind  of  gladiator, 
311,  note  96,  412. 

Missing  link,  connecting  the  cat¬ 
tle-breeders  with  the  unions, 
388. 

Mithridates,  tyrant  of  Cappado¬ 
cia,  169;  his  punishment  of 
Aquillius,  273  ;  his  defeat  by 
Lucullus.  323,  note  121. 

Mixing,  Numa  taught  them  to 
mix,  371. 

Mnason,  a  great  slave  owner,  135. 
Mnistheus,  454. 

Mob,  of  Roman  lords,  234;  of  no¬ 
bles  who  assassinated  Grac¬ 
chus,  241;  of  gladiators,  323  ; 
of  young  men  set  upon  Lycur- 
gus,  527 ;  cruel,  that  murdered 
Jesus,  562. 

Mock,  theatricals,  220;  manoeu¬ 
vres  and  sham  battles,  410  ; 
combats  in  the  arena,  411. 
Mohammedan  rescue,  555. 

Mola  de  Gaeta,  316,  note  111. 
Moloch,  44. 

Mommsen,  112, 127, 187 ;  on  the 
law  of  Solon,  113;  always  re¬ 
liable,  clears  up  the  doubt,  508. 
Mona,  Isle  of,  and  the  Druids, 
482. 

Monarchism,  earliest  European, 
112;  that  of  Numa  a  wise,  375. 
Money,  changers,  509,  518;  the 
iron,  of  the  Spartans,  531. 
Monks,  what  upheld  by,  556. 
Monotheism,  Jewish,  40,  504. 
Monselice,  union  of  hunters  dis¬ 
covered  at,  394. 

Mont  Ferrand,  carders,  masons, 


weavers  of,  had  blood-red,  489 

Moors,  in  Sicily  against  Athe- 
nion,  262. 

Morgantion,  255  sq. 

Morocco,  Peru,  Bolivia,  red,  487. 

Mortars,  for  grinding,  446. 

Mortgages,  on  landed  estates, 
119,  note  74,  531. 

Mosaic  law,  43-5. 

Moses,  39-45 ;  Pentateuch  con¬ 
taining  the  law  of,  40 ;  other 
59,  72 ;  divine  authorship  of 
his  law,  46 ;  provided  for  slav¬ 
ery,  566. 

Mount Garganus, battle  of,  306-8; 
Taygetus,  533 ;  see  Olympus. 

Muenter,  who  sketched  a  wine- 
smokers’  society,  383. 

Muleteers,  a  union  of,  396. 

Mummius,  disastrous  defeat  of, 
314;  frightful  punishment  of 
his  men  for  cowardice,  315  and 
note  108. 

Munitions,  the  manufacture  of, 
by  trade  unions,  443. 

Murder,  of  the  Gracchi,  233;  of 
Clonius,  253,  many  shocking, 
536. 

Murileguli,  who  fished  for  shells 
and  purple  fish,  418. 

Murillo,  84. 

Muscovite,  464. 

Musical  instruments,  408;  see 
chapter  on  organized  amusers, 

Museum,  400;  at  Pesth,  402;  of 
Athens,  453. 

Mutice,  number  of  property  own¬ 
ers  at,  194. 

Mutina,  battle  of,  313. 

Mutilation,  of  the  books,  268-9 ; 
also  299,  note  57  ;  of  slaves, 
385,  note  30;  of  Hermotius, 
168-9  note  7 ;  of  the  valuable 
literature,  522. 

Mutiny,  of  the  soldiers  of  Spar- 
tacus,  320. 

Mutton,  fish  and  venison,  the  ar¬ 
istocratic  food.  386. 


INDEX. 


666 


Mycaenee,  servant  in  the  league 
at,  110,  note  50. 

Myndum,  in  the  labor  war,  235. 

Myron,  rival  of  Phidias,  431. 

Mysteries,  the  little,  87;  their  re¬ 
ligious  rites,  94;  Eleusinian, 
see  chaper  iv.  pp.  83-132,  536 ; 
of  skilled  art,  539. 

Mythology,  Saturn  and  Janus 
chained  the  god  of  war,  47 ; 
the  ancient,  88,  sq. 

N 

Nahuas,  gladiatorial  sacrifices  of, 
278. 

Naked,  both  sexes  worked  so  to¬ 
gether  in  the  mines,  138-9; 
sweat-begrimed  slaves,  248; 
maidens  practiced  gymnastics 
with  the  young  men, 534,  535 ; 
lowly  and  living  in  caves,  530, 
532. 

Naples,  divers’  unions  at,  1 13  n.  61. 

Napoleon,  compared  with  Spar- 
cus,  viii. 

Narbonne,  inscription  of  milk-jar 
makers  at,  399. 

Narcissus,  stupefying  influence 
of  the,  at  the  mysteries,  92. 

Nassicus,  assassin  of  Gracchus, 
241,  note  19. 

Natal  months,  of  Geres,  Minerva, 
Apollo,  488. 

Nationalization,  of  implements 
of  labor,  570. 

Native  Races,  Bancroft’s  278,  n.  4. 

Naturalists,  and  the  new  philos¬ 
ophy,  62. 

Nautii,  family  of  the,  114. 

Nazareth,  the  unions  around,  see 
chapter  xxiii.;  503. 

Nemesis,  goddess  of  justice,  413, 
note  36. 

Nemetum  and  Augu&tonemetum, 
485. 

Neo-Platonism,  466;  engrafted 
as  a  Christian  dogma,  516,  551; 


amalgamation,  522,  551. 

Neptune,  the  reign  of,  47;  and 
his  trident  at  the  Clepsydrae, 
130,  note  96. 

Nero,  despot,  xiii. 

Nerva,  247,  note  1. 

Nestor,  452. 

Nets  of  the  seas,  316,  note  111. 

New  England  states  and  their 
colors,  492. 

Nicanor,  a  perfumer,  434. 

Nicaragua,  92,  note  18. 

Nice,  unions  of  divers  at,  113. 

Nicias,  a  slave  owner,  135 ;  had 
also  convicts  working  for  him 
in  the  mines,  138,  note  25;  and 
Oimon,  146. 

Nicholas,  of  Damascus,  165, 168, 
277,  note  1. 

Nicomides,  king  of  Bithynia,  249, 
note  5. 

Niebuhr,  299. 

Nile,  112,  red-birds  of  the,  479. 

Nio,  456. 

Nomads,  70;  see  gypsy ;  Sparta- 
cus  a,  282,  note  13;  not  Ar¬ 
yan,  560;  the  first  runaways, 
560. 

Nomenclature,  of  the  Greek  com¬ 
munes,  455,  note  16. 

Non-laboring  class  preferred  the 
white  color,  466  ;  non-warfare 
of  Numa’s  system,  537, 

Norba,  Circijus,  Praeneste,  151, 

North  Americau  Indians,  anal¬ 
ogy  between  gens  and,  86,  n.  6. 

Nuisance,  communes  declared  a 
283,  note  16. 

Numa  Pompilius,  146  ;  laws  of, 
109,  119;  encouraged  trades 
unions,  123,  146,  156.  161;  his 
celebrated  provision,  285;  up¬ 
held  the  labor  societies,  303 ; 
promoted  trade  and  labor  un¬ 
ions  and  the  brotherhoods  700 
years  before  Christ,  335;  the 
first  king  that  recognized,  be¬ 
friended  <fc  legalized  labor,  336; 


INDEX. 


667 


538;  reigned  43  years  338; 
his  greatness,  339 ;  death  of, 
375;  compared  with  Solon  and 
Tullius,  426  ;  sanctions  the  bac¬ 
chanals,  502. 

Numantia  in  Spain,  bad  condition 
of  slaves,  179. 

Numbers,  of  children  of  the  rich, 
49,  note  5 ;  of  slaves  at  Greek 
mines,  143,  note  38  ;  of  cap¬ 
tive  slaves  in  the  conquests, 
193,  note  1 ;  in  the  armies  of 
Eunus,  viii.,  218,  note  70;  of 
Piso’s  army,  223 ;  crucified  at 
Enna,  229 ;  slaves  in  rebellion, 
254,  note  20 ;  of  the  army  of 
Salvius,  255,  363 ;  of  army  of 
Lucullus,  264;  combined  force 
of  slaves  at  battle  of  Scirthaea, 
of  imported  slaves  for  cheap 
labor,  286,  note  27;  killed  in 
battle  with  Spartacus  at -Vesu¬ 
vius,  297,  note  93  ;  of  army  of 
Spartacus  after  Garganus.  304, 
note  77 ;  Appian’s  estimate  in 
Thuria,  306,  note  82  ;  killed, 
according  to  statementof  Fron- 
tin,  319,  note  118;  total  force 
of  Spartacus  at  Silarus  accord¬ 
ing  to  Vellejus  Paterculus, 
324-8,  notes  123-4,  132;  also 
of  combined  Roman  armies  at 
same  battle,  424,  note  122;  of 
slaves  estimated  killed  in  all 
uprisings,  330,  note  136,  of 
slaves  owned  by  Claudius,  340, 
note  17;  of  the  Dionysian  com¬ 
munes,  404,  note  9;  of  war¬ 
riors  of  Eunus,  549;  of  Jews 
murdered  by  the  Romans,  567; 
comparative,  of  mankind,  570. 

Mymph,  Thalia,  247;  Lycia,  569. 

Nymphodorus,  little  known  of, 
165;  a  Sicilian  geographer  and 
historian,  163-4;  his  lost  book, 
165,  note  10;  his  remarkable 
story  of  Drimakos  preserved 
by  Athenseus,  chapter  vii. 


O 

Oaken  tables,  of  our  forefathers, 
the  communal,  532. 

Oath,  exacted  from  freedmen  & 
slaves  in  camp,  471,  note  12. 

Obligatory  rule,  compelling  the 
unions  to  chisel  out  their  lith¬ 
ographs,  426. 

Obloquy,  falsely  attaching  to  the 
ancient  bacchantes,  502. 

O’Bryan,  on  slave  leaders,  274, 
note  70. 

Oderic,  392. 

Odium,  attaching  to  slave  rebell¬ 
ions,  294,  note  47;  attaching 
to  labor,  502,  529 

Odyssey,  shown  to  be  younger 
than  the  Iliad,  80. 

(Enomaus,  289,  note  36;  elected 
a  lieutenant  under  Spartacus, 
294 ;  his  defeat  and  death,  306 
and  note  77. 

Offerings  of  frankincense,  357. 

Officers  of  the  brotherhoods  enu¬ 
merated,  357,  translation  617 
Greek,  453. 

Offspring,  replenishing  the  Spar¬ 
tan  state  with  good,  536. 

Oil-grinders,  364. 

Olenus  Oalenus,  soothsayer,  154, 
note  27. 

Oligarchy,  of  money,  398,  note 
26;  of  one-third  of  the  popula¬ 
tion,  496;  Aristotle’s  542,  543. 

Ollas,  jumping  and  tumbling  on, 
505.  a 

Olympiad,  247,  note  1. 

Olympian  Zeus,  statue  of,  101 ; 
heights,  236 ;  abodes,  516 ;  & 
thrones,  548 ;  mount,  home  of 
the  gods  in  charge  of  the  wel¬ 
fare  of  mortals,  351. 

Opimius,  the  murderer  of  Grac¬ 
chus,  241,  note  19. 

Oppression,  ancient  resistance  to, 
68;  of  the  dominant  class.  79; 
of  ancient  slaves,  96. 


0G8 


INDEX. 


Optimate  class,  409;  lictors  re¬ 
quired  to  be  of  the,  476;  did 
not  work,  530  of  Aristotle’s 
state,  542. 

Ora  Rhodana  (the  mouths  of  the 
Rhone),  and  modes  of  an¬ 
cient  commerce,  440. 

Oracles,  diviners  of,  413. 

Oration,  of  Cato  against  Galba, 
181,  note  5. 

Order  of  the  wood-workers,  360, 
note  3;  of  the  masons,  stone 
and  bricklayers,  365;  tax-men, 
440,  441;  see  trade  unions. 

Organization,  ancient  secret,  69, 
71;  of  freedmen,  74;  of  mer¬ 
cenaries,  78;  the  Eleusinian, 
87;  secret,  90,  see  communes; 
antiquity  of  labor,  94;  of  fam¬ 
ilies  and  fratries,  101,  of  the 
Helots,  108 ;  people  driven  to, 
110;  of  fish -mongers  at  Syra¬ 
cuse,  119;  encouraged  by  Nu- 
ma,  123;  grievances  discussed 
by,  129;  of  slaves  in  Sicily, 
197 ;  of  the  laboring  class, 
333;  see  chapters  on  organi¬ 
zation  p.  333,  sqq. ;  of  trade 
unions,  index  of  them;  of 
farmers,  see  farmers. 

Orgeons  and  Essenes,  450,  493; 
and  the  orgiastes,  469. 

Orgies  lupercalian,  of  the  Ger¬ 
man  farmers,  344,  note  30;  of 
Eleusis  not  belonging  to  the 
labor  question,  505. 

Oriflamme,  485. 

Origin  of  the  gladiatorial  games, 
278,  note  3;  of  conscience,  see 
chapter  ii. ;  of  life,  59;  of  cun¬ 
ning,  60;  of  ghosts,  61;  of 
the  word  flag,  485;  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  Wescher  quoted,  506. 

Orpheus,  the  priest,  92. 

Orsona,  iEmilius’  camp  at,  186. 

Ostia,  port  of  Rome,  unions  at, 
382,  note  23 ;  inscription  show¬ 
ing  the  political  action  at,  383, 
note  20;  its  business,  440. 


Ouranos,  the  vaulted  dome,  236 ; 
its  invisible  inhabitants,  516, 
352. 

Outcasts  and  descendants  of  the 
slaves,  438 ;  the  plebeian  pop¬ 
ulation,  344;  the  dangerous, 
437 ;  victimized  by  prayer,  464. 

Ovation,  to  the  Palakoi,  263;  to 
Aquillius,  272. 

Overseer,  of  collectors’union,439. 

Overturned  villages,  cities  and 
castles,  267,  note  50. 

Ownership,  by  the  government, 
of  mills,  417. 

Ox,  harnessed  to  Pliny’s  reaper, 
569,  note  109;  car-load  of  Ly- 
curgus’  iron  money,  532. 

P 

Paeans  and  prayers  of  thiasotes, 
536. 

Pagan,  religion,  69;  was  over¬ 
turned  by  the  labor  unions,  its 
true  basis,  76;  religio-slavery 
the  outcome  of  it,  83,  495 ;  its 
temple,  114;  traditional  fam¬ 
ily,  497 ;  Pagan  law  of  entail- 
ment  upon  primogeniture, 
558 ;  prayers,  specimens 
brought  forward,  561-64;  in¬ 
stitutions  and  adherents,  and 
what  became  of  them,  see  the 
chapter  xxiv,  and  pp.  513- 
520;  final,  315. 

Painting,  a  master  of,  101 ;  era 
of  Grecian,  128. 

Palaeozoic  era,  276. 

Pala;stra,  of  suffering,  249. 

Pialaeographic  and  tradional 
records,  492;  anaglyphs 
etc.,  451;  unearthed  during 
thie  19th  century,  501; 
showing  a  microcosm  of  a 
far  future  state,  459. 

Palenque,  inscriptions  at,  112. 

Palestine,  41,  40,  88,  444;  se¬ 
cret  commune*  of,  001,  th« 


INDEX. 


699 


entire  chapter  xxiii.,  pp. 
493-519. 

Palkoi,  247;  asylum  of  the 
252;  twins  of  Thalia  and 
Jupiter,  247. 

Palisade-like  intrenchments  or 
fortifications  against  Sparta- 
cus  320  and  note  119;  318. 

Palladiums,  etc.,  556. 

Palladius  and  his  account  of 
the  ancient  reaper,  569,  note 
109. 

Pallas,  children  of,  49;  Athene 
562. 

Panatheniastes,  462. 

Pangaetus,  strikes  in  the  mines 
of  gold  at,  144. 

Pangaeus,  mines  in  Thrace,  137. 

Panifices,  or  bakers,  349. 

Panionius,  revenge  of  Hermo- 
tius,  168-9,  note  7. 

Pantaetus,  143. 

Paperna,  campaign  against  Ar- 
istonicus,  242,  243. 

Paphlagonia,  239. 

Papian  law,  243,  note  21. 

Parallelisms,  of  Socrates  and 
Jesus,  514,  560. 

Paraphrase,  Dindorf’s,  on 
tramps,  261,  note  37;  Dio 
Cassius,  and  Diodorus,  261. 

Paris,  vast  catacombs  at,  155. 

Parmenides,  518. 

Paros,  the  slab  of,  87,  note  Id. 

Parrhasius,  great  painter,  101. 

Parthenon,  101,  124,  126,  built 
under  Pericles,  124,  its  mar¬ 
bles  and  material,  368;  made 
by  the  genius  and  chisel  of 
the  sculptor  Phidias,  125. 

Passions,  toning  and  moraliz¬ 
ing,  530. 

Patavium,  inscription  of  the 
ragpickers  found  at,  423. 

Patch-workers,  422;  piecers, 
424,  how  they  drifted  into 
the  business,  425. 

Paterfamilias,  69,  74,  497;  his 
power  over  brothers  and  sis¬ 


ters,  50,  51;  worships  his 
dead  father  as  a  god,  51;  be¬ 
comes  saint  and  god  after 
death,  85. 

Patriarchal,  government  un¬ 
mentioned  by  inscriptions,  73. 

Patrician,  39,  72;  Plato  a,  39; 
disposal  of  property  of,  49-50; 
contest  of  opinion  between 
the,  and  the  communes,  493; 
consuls  fought  the  working¬ 
men,  474;  smiles  of  the,  532. 

Patron,  saint  or  divinity,  469. 

Paul,  Paulus,  Aemilius  in  Epir¬ 
us,  another,  defeated  by 
Viriathus,  186;  Aemilius,  hav¬ 
oc  of,  340,  note  17;  Saint, 
552. 

Peace,  hues  were  red,  486; 
standard  of  Egypt  is  still  red, 
491;  banner,  of  American 
colonies,  red,  492;  makers,  of 
Lycurgus,  532. 

Pearl,  brass,  gold  and  amber  en¬ 
tered  into  manufacture  of  im¬ 
ages,  430;  fishers  (margarit- 
arii),  434;  used  in  decorating 
images,  435. 

Pelasgians,  Chios,  primeval 
home  of  the,  163. 

Peligni,  union  of  hunters  found 
at,  393,  394. 

Peloponnesian  war,  105,  134; 
decided  by  a  strike,  138; 
breaking  out  of,  139. 

Penates,  the  home  of  the  lares, 
52. 

Penetralia,  52,  494. 

Pennons,  jacks,  and  merchants’ 
standards,  487. 

Pentateuch,  40. 

Pentelicus  marble  quarries,  368. 

Pepiles,  an  aboriginal  American 
tribe,  92,  note  18. 

Pepin  le  Bref,  488,  note  53. 

Perfidy,  of  the  workingmen  to 
each  other,  228;  of  Nerva, 
250;  of  Aquillius,  272;  &  be¬ 
trayal,  514. 


070 


IVDBX. 


Perfumers’  society  at  Capua, 
291;  unguentarii,  who  made 
things  “fit  for  the  gods,”  433; 
had  unions  in  Athens  and  Co¬ 
rinth,  434. 

Pergamus,  see  all  of  chapter  x., 
pp.  232-45,  Aristonicus;  in¬ 
scription  from,  98;  insurrec¬ 
tion  at,  150;  seat  of  the  up¬ 
rising  of  Aristonicus  and  the 
farmers,  511;  become  mellow 
ground  for  Christianity,  512. 

Pericles,  archon  of  Athens,  124; 
wages  in  the  time  of,  137; 
an  admirer  of  Phidias,  431. 

Perioeci,  a  favored  class  of  Lac¬ 
edaemon,  101,  106. 

Permian  age,  276. 

Persecutions,  of  Diocletian, 
483;  of  the  centuries,  523. 

Perseus,  the  siege  of,  193. 

Petinax,  emperor  of  Rome,  79. 

Petelia,  battle  of,  and  victory 
of  Spartacus,  321. 

Phidias,  a  descendant  of  slaves, 
160;  great  sculptor,  100;  a 
friend  of  Pericles,  125;  trans¬ 
cendent  genius  of,  128;  mag¬ 
nificent  works,  101;  with  My¬ 
ron,  Polycletiis,  Alcamines, 
435;  in  Lucian’  dream,  543. 

Philemon  and  Archilochus,  544. 

Philip  of  Macedon,  544. 

Philo  Judaeus  quoted,  504,  n. 
23. 

Philosopher,  Aristotle’s  predic¬ 
tion,  71;  is  discovering  won¬ 
derful  things,  84;  Nicholas  of 
Damascus,  quoted,  277,  note 
1;  what  his  greatest  pleas¬ 
ure  539,  542. 

Philosophy,  39;  one  that  de¬ 
nies  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  52;  effect  of  such,  on  a 
workingman,  63-4;  the  Aris¬ 
totelian,  116,  118;  great  era 
of  Greek,  128 ;  of  annihila¬ 
tion,  129,  n.  90;  see  Plato 
and  Aristotle. 


Phocaea, favors  Aristonicus, 239. 

Phoebus,  390;  in  Britian,  482. 

Phoeion,  545. 

Phoenicia,  110;  Greek  spoken, 
197,  its  lost  art  of  red  dyes, 
479,  480;  see  Palestine. 

Phoenicians,  see  Palestine,  chap¬ 
ter  xxiii.,  pp.  493-519;  were 
not  an  aggressive  race,  40  and 
notes;  belonged  to  the  Se¬ 
mitic  family,  48,  120;  enter¬ 
prise  of  the,  124;  were  slave 
traders,  164;  and  their  trade 
with  the  Africans,  432;  dyes, 
483;  kidnapers,  498. 

Phcenicepteros,  478. 

Phoenix,  Greek  and  ardea  Latin 
were  the  flaming  reds,  478, 
note  30,  fin. 

Phratries,  86,  94,  99,  367; 
outcasts  formed  into,  86 ; 
name  uppermost  for  Greek 
organizations,  502. 

Phrygia,  stone  slabs  from  503. 

Physicism,  of  Aristotle,  516. 

Picenum,  311. 
battle  Mummius  at,  312. 

Piraeus,  the  unions  at  the,  113; 
trade  unions  at  the,  125;  or¬ 
ganizations  of  workers  in 
great  numbers,  361 ;  unions 
of  Greek  flute  players  at, 
410;  at  the  unions  of  the 
Heroistes,  Serapistes,  etc., 
450;  examol  at,  508;  a 
thiasos  mentioned,  505. 

Pirates,  in  Chios  after  the 
death  of  Drimakos,  176;  sup¬ 
posed  to  have  assisted  Spar¬ 
tacus,  316;  account  given  by 
Tacitus,  316,  note  111;  more 
about,  498. 

Pi8aurum,  wood-workers  of.  361 
and  note  8. 

Piscicapii,  389. 

Pisistratidae,  an  Athenian  fam¬ 
ily  of  high  estate,  125. 

Piso,  fourth  general  against 
Eunus,  218. 


INDEX. 


671 


Plans,  of  salvation,  of  working- 
people,  46  and  note  14;  of 
Eunus,  extermination,  219; 
of  slaves  in  rebellion  are  ex¬ 
posed,  151,  note  18;  a  peace¬ 
ful,  of  salvation,  517 ;  of  the 
various  leaders,  525 ;  of 
Lycurgus,  a  summary,  537 ; 
of  Eunus,  548;  of  Aristoni- 
cus,  550;  of  Drimakos,  550; 
of  Spartacus,  551;  of  Salvius, 
255;  the  two  immortal,  now 
mixing,  555;  of  salvation,  of 
Moses,  etc.,  565;  of  the 
moderns,  567. 

Plant,  the  new,  how  prepared, 
513 ;  of  Lycurgus,  537 ;  of 
the  great  men  who  figured 
for  the  cause  of  humanity, 
see  chapter  xxiv.,  pp.  520- 
573. 

Planted,  the  red,  all  along,  be¬ 
tween  Auvergne  and  Kent, 
488. 

Plaster  images  (tectoriolae) , 
mentioned  by  Cicero.  432. 

Plato,  39,  53,  59.  107,  109;  was 
willing  to  take  gifts  from  the 
wealthy,  but  refused  pay,  39; 
on  the  soul,  60;  reference  to 
his  Phaedrus,  93,  note  19; 
was  an  advocate  of  slavery, 
102;  the  two  moral  elements 
of,  109;  Aristotle  against, 
1 17 ;  his  episode  at  Syracuse, 
118;  sold  as  a  slave  in  Italy, 
119;  general  movement  of, 
1 32 ;  hardheartedness  in  some 
things,  136;  on  immortality, 
193;  his  visit  to  Italy,  444; 
ideas  copied  from  the  Pagan 
religion,  466;  takes  Socrates 
down  to  the  Piraeus,  513;  one 
of  the  five  remarkable  men, 
514. 

Plautius,  defeated  by  Viriathus, 
185;  Hypsaeus,  his  arrival,  to 
fight  Eunus,  217. 

Plebiscita,  340, 


Plebeians,  39 ;  not  citizens,  344, 
note  27 ;  were  the  theatre 
actors,  404;  their  love  of  the 
red  color,  473;  Licinius  a, 
474;  the  power  of,  474, 
note  20. 

Pliny,  his  natural  history,  79, 
154 ;  celebrated  naturalist, 
129;  on  ancient  reaper,  569, 
note  109. 

Plumage,  of  the  red-bird,  479. 

Plutarch,  98,  103 ;  evidence  of 
concerning  the  murder  of  the 
slaves,  86;  quoted,  105;  bat¬ 
tle  of  the  Po,  311;  q  .oted  as 
to,  311;  as  to  Silarus,  327; 
lampoons  the  workers,  544. 

Pluto  and  Proserpine,  story  of, 
88,  198. 

Poison,  for  the  working  classes, 
546,  547. 

Polemarch  and  Lysias,  shield- 
makers,  547. 

Polemic,  Wescher-Foucart,  506; 

Polias,  architect  of  the  temple 
of  Minerva,  his  wages,  137, 
cruel  slave  owner,  215,  405. 

Policy,  of  priest-power  to  cur-~ 
tail  information,  522 ;  a, 
which  is  the  meanest  on  the 
pagan  schedule,  524. 

Political  economy,  43 ;  economy, 
prevalence  of  priest-power  in, 
45 ;  institutions  and  the  work 
people,  94 ;  actio  *  of  unions 
at  Ostia,  383,  note  26;  of  fed¬ 
erated  trade  unions  of  Pom¬ 
peii,  390-91  and  notes  3,  4,  5. 

Politics,  a  noble  calling,  113; 
forbidden  the  ancient  unions, 
113;  Politics,  title  of  Aris¬ 
totle’s  celebrated  book,  see 
Aristotle ;  politicians,  or  the 
upper  class  were  wrangling 
while  the  communes  were 
harmonious,  509. 

Polution,  the  touch  of  a  work¬ 
ingman  supposed  to  polute, 
349. 


672 


INDEX. 


Polybius,  on  the  red  flag,  467  & 
note  5. 

Polycletus,  in  Lucian’s  dream, 
543. 

Polyglot,  P.  Crassus,  who  spoke 
many  Greek  dialects,  238,  and 
note  12. 

Pomona,  presided  over  the  or¬ 
chards,  477 ;  herself,  Isis,  Osi¬ 
ris  and  her  flaminica,  480. 

Pompey,  xii.,  317 ;  in  war  of  the 
gladiators,  319  sqq.,  note  117; 
arrives  from  Spain,  323; 
bears  down  upon  Spartacus, 
323  and  note  121. 

Pompeii,  an  important  inscrip¬ 
tion  found  at,  i28 ;  volunteers 
to  Spartacus  from,  297;  wo¬ 
men  in  the  labor  politics  of, 
390,  391  and  note  5;  inscrip¬ 
tion  of  cloth-fullers  who  were 
employed  by  the  state,  416, 
note  5. 

Pumptine  swamps,  the,  149. 

Pont  du  Chateau,  half-red  ban¬ 
ners,  489. 

Po,  Spartacus  marches  to  the, 
307,  309;  his  arrival  at,  308, 
note  84. 

Pool  of  the  Twins,  247,  note  2. 

Pooling,  of  sums  to  bribe  Nerva, 
249„  250  and  note  8. 

Poor  food,  for  the  slaves,  43, 
note  16;  there  were  unions 
for  furnishing  its  supply, 
383,  note  26. 

Popidius  (Rufus),  manager  of 
the  family  of  gladiators,  411. 

Poplicola,  tactics  of,  308;  great 
battle  with  and  defeat  of,  308. 

Poplius  Clonius,  murder  of, 
253,  note  16. 

Population,  of  Corinth,  193;  in 
the  slave  era,  enormous,  340, 
note  17 ;  of  Sparta,  529 ;  see 
census. 

Porcelain,  ancient  invention, 
571. 

Pork  butchers’  unions,  386.  441 ; 
see  food 


Port,  of  Ostia,  unions  of,  382, 
note  23;  of  the  Rhone  (Ora 
Rhodani),  440;  of  Athens,  or 
the  Piraeus,  361;  see  Piraeus. 

Porte  banni^res,  484,  note  44. 

Poseidonius,  the  stoic,  169. 

Postumius,  defeats  the  strikers 
at  Apulia,  160. 

Potters,  Numa’s  union  of,  335, 
note  6 ;  ampulae  or  jugs,  of  the 
milkmens’  union,  399 ;  an¬ 
other  union  of,  445;  the  ty¬ 
rant  Agathocles  a,  545. 

Powderly,  stand  taken  by  him, 
disclosing  the  power  of  or¬ 
ganization,  334. 

Power,  of  the  ancient  father 
over  his  children,  76,  note  25; 
of  masters  over  slaves,  121, 
note  75;  of  married  man  over 
his  female  slaves,  49  and  note 
4,  147  and  note  8;  of  Eunus, 
221,  note  81;  of  life  and 
death,  294,  note  48;  of  habit, 
465-6,  483,  489;  of  the  ple- 
bians  in  Roman  elections, 
474,  note  20. 

Prsegustatorum  collegium,  union 
of  tasters,  398. 

Praeneste,  150;  slave  insurrec¬ 
tion  at,  151,  note  18;  inscrip¬ 
tion  at,  403. 

Prairie  on  fire,  487. 

Praxiteles,  Lysippus,  Scopas, 
435. 

Prayer  of  woman,  303,  note  73; 
the  unions  opened  their  ses¬ 
sions  with,  461;  sayings  and 
doings  compared,  525,  sqq.; 
and  deeds,  of  Tertullian,  552, 
note  70;  of  Socrates,  561;  of 
Jesus,  562 ;  of  Alcestis,  562-3 ; 
of  a  selfish  son,  563;  of  Ores¬ 
tes,  563;  paeans  and,  of  the 
thiasotes,  563 ;  of  the  QuechS, 
tribe,  564;  of  ancient  Pagan 
priest,  564. 

Pre-Christian  societies,  461. 

Precipices,  hurled  down  the,  by 
Rupillui,  227 ;  cast  headlong, 


INDEX. 


673 


from  the  Ncbrode,  2.52. 

Precocious  trade  unionist,  383, 
note  26. 

Prediction,  of  the  wife  of  Spar- 
tacus,  558. 

Presses,  386. 

Prestigiation,  45,  274,  note  70. 

Pretox  of  religion,  346,  note  36. 

Priest,  power  in  political  econ¬ 
omy,  45;  was  a  public  officer, 
114;  the  Druid,  482; — craft, 
origin  of,  53,  superstitious  be¬ 
lief  in,  352;  his  sacerdotal 
and  sacrificial  paraphernalia, 
429;  of  Aristotle's  age,  538; 
priesthood,  bound  in  the 
secret  mysteries,  90. 

Primeval,  men.  72;  race,  73; 
colors,  473.  note  16;  mind, 
472.  487. 

Primogeniture,  law  of,  50 :  en- 
tailment  upon,  558 ;  laws  of 
inheritance  and  rules  of  en¬ 
tail  upon,  571. 

Prince  of  this  world,  556. 

Prison,  description  of  the  ’Ro¬ 
man.  154;  the  public,  151  and 
note  18;  description,  by  Bom- 
bardini,  154;  the  strikers  cast 
into,  160.  note  42;  broken 
open  and  60,000  prisoners  set 
free:  251,  note  12.  254;  was 
called  the  home  of  the  prole¬ 
taries.  287,  note  32. 

Private  union,  510,  note  37. 

Privateers,  societies  of.  510. 

Probus,  emperor  of  Rome,  79. 

Proclaim  the  cult,  554. 

Procurators  with  their  qiues- 
tors,  439. 

Proeranistria.  female  guardian, 
453.  455.  463. 

Proletarian  class,  ignored  by 
paganism.  428;  origin  of  the, 
85 ;  the  army  of.  320. 

Prompter,  at  the  theatre.  402, 
note  1. 

Propaganda,  system  of,  244, 
and  note  23;  of  organization, 

448,  note  9. 


Property,  see  family;  common, 
under  Lycurgus,  69 ;  owners 
of,  organized  for  protection, 
property  and  family  original¬ 
ly  one  and  the  same  thing, 
281,  note  11;  comprehends 
money,  land,  house,  slaves, 
281,  n.  11. 

Prophecy,  of  Aurinia,  290,  note 
37,  305,  note  78. 

Prophet,  Athenicn  a,  259;  also 
Eunus,  548;  were  in  all  tur¬ 
moils,  557 :  thev  existed  thro 
all  antiquity,  558. 

Propitiation  of  the  divinities  by 
wild  tumult,  244,  note  23. 

Proportion  of  Gauls  to  Thra¬ 
cians  of  Spartacus,  289.  note 
36. 

Proprietorship,  system  of  com¬ 
munal,  69. 

Propylse,  of  the  Parthenon,  101. 

Propylsea,  430. 

Proserpine,  or  Persephone,  the 
story  of.  88-9,  92;  rape  of, 
90;  carried  to  Enna,  198. 

Prostates,  a.  president,  453. 

Prostitution,  463,  464. 

Proto-divinities,  489. 

Protoplasm,  59. 

Proudhon,  60. 

Provisions,  and  who  furnished 
them,  396;  see  chapters  xv.  & 
xvi.,  Rome’s  army  supplies,  & 
victualing  system. 

Prytaneum,  the,  126. 

Pseudo-Asconius.  225 ;  note  94. 

Psomokolophos,  or  runaway, 
boy  friend  of  Drimakos,  174. 

Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  564. 

Public  works,  403. 

Publicans,  Cicero’s  praise  of 
the,  249,  note  7. 

Publishing,  how  done,  436. 

Publius  Varinius,  defeat  of, 
207. 

Pulvinaria,  inscription  by  an 
association  of.  432. 

Punic  hostages,  153,  note  22; 
war,  the  third,  178,  215. 


(374 


ixdex. 


Punishment,  of  slaves,  244,  note 
22;  for  falsehood  and  per¬ 
jury,  248,  note  3;  inflicted 
upon  the  Romans,  26G;  by 
Crassus,  of  cowards,  315, 
note  108;  of  the  soldiers  of 
Mummius  by  Spartacns,  315. 

Putnam,  red  flag  displayed  by, 
at  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  492. 

Purple,  clothed  in,  258,  note  29 ; 
why  a  mixed  color,  476. 

Purveying,  systematic  method 
of,  437. 

Puv  de  Dome,  484,  note  46. 

Puzzle-guessing,  528,  558. 

Pydna,  the  battle  of,  in  Epirus, 
179,  186. 

Pyrrhus,  in  Tarentum  abolished 
common  tables,  287,  note  28. 

Pythagoras,  thought  to  have 
known  Numa,  who  through 
him  wras  a  communist,  359, 
note  1 ;  plants  communism  in 
Italy,  444;  and  the  sect,  194. 

Q 

Qualms,  swoons  and  upheavals, 
494,  495. 

Quarrels,  between  Crixus,  JEn- 
omaus  and  Spartacns,  305. 
306;  involved  in  the  red  flag, 
473;  of  the  mediteval  shoe¬ 
makers  and  cobblers.  484, 
note  45. 

Quarries,  368. 

Question,  of  Laelius  to  Blossius, 
241,  note  1C. 

Quinquennial,  five  years’  magis¬ 
trate,  357. 

Quinquennium,  city  of  Rome 
held  5  years  from  electing  an 
aristocrat,  474,  note  20. 

Quinctio  L.  in  battle  with  Cas- 
tus,  320.  note  119. 

Quinctius,  defeated  by  Viria- 
thus,  186;  and  Tremellius 
Scrofa  defeated  by  Sparta- 
cus,  at  Petelia,  321. 

R 

Race,  Asiatic,  70;  culture,  528; 


of  the  Spartans,  535;  of  the 
Eagle,  or  aristocracy,  in  the 
prayer  of  Orestes  563;  the 
Hebrew,  567 ;  • 

Rag-pickers  and  patch-piecers 
unions,  422,  note  30;  see 

gypsy- 

Rangabe,  quoted  507. 

Rape  of  Proserpine,  performed 
as  a  drama  at  Elausis,  91,  92, 
note  18 ;  of  Virginia,  287  and 
note  32. 

Raphael's  intimacy  with  Pope 
Leo,  125;  taint  of  labor,  544. 

Ravelli,  a  place  where  inscrip¬ 
tions  are  found,  364. 

Reaper,  of  ancient  Gaul,  569, 
note  109 ;  of  Pliny  and  Palla- 
dius,  569. 

Reason,  guided  by  social  laws, 
60;  dawn  of,  72;  the  world 
to  adopt,  524;  used  on  two 
distinct  lines,  538. 

Rebellion,  slaves  in  prodigious, 
86;  in  the  United  States, 
140;  other,  405;  see  insur¬ 
rections,  strikes,*  turmoils, 
xii. ;  of  the  children,  525;  of 
the  animate  tools  of  labor, 
567,  573. 

Reciprocating  shears,  in  ai  cient 
reaper,  570. 

Records,  scarcity  of,  on  ancient 
labor,  71;  tracing  back  to 
prove  their  age,  426. 

Red,  flames,  248,  note  3;  ban¬ 
ner,  see  chapter  22,  pp.  465- 
92;  flag,  an  account  given  by 
Polybius,  467,  note  5;  the 
champion  of  tints,  472;  pre¬ 
valence  of,  in  industry,  477 ; 
prohibition  law  killed  out  the 
invention  of  red  dyeing,  479- 
80;  red  and  white  the  es¬ 
sences  of  color.  480;  adopted 
by  the  Christians.  481 ;  the 
early  flag  in  the  United 
States,.  492. 

Redemption,  528, 


INDUX. 


675 


Regent,  Lycurgus  a,  by  inherit¬ 
ance,  531. 

Registration,  of  friendly  socie¬ 
ties,  447. 

Rehabilitation,  of  ancient  labor, 
and  the  harvest,  519,  572. 

Religion,  bringing  of,  into  this 
history,  a  necessity,  x. ;  was 
arranged  by  an  Intercessor, 
42 ;  the  original  or  first,  43 ; 
its  omission  impossible,  45 ; 
it  governed  political  habits, 
48 ;  was  based  upon  con¬ 
science,  62;  the  handmaid  of, 
63;  the  working  people  were 
religious,  64;  of  the  slaves  of 
antiquity,  53;  of  Jesus,  was 
planted  by  a  laborer,  57 ; 
ancient,  60,  68 ;  Pagan,  69 ; 
Aryan,  69 ;  a  part  of  an 
ancient  workingman’s  life, 
70;  ancient  forms  exist  in 
modern,  70;  belief  of  slaves, 
75;  basis  of  Pagan.  76; 
slavery  the  outcome  of  the 
Pagan,  83;  origin  of  the 
Pagan,  85;  slaves  organized 
under  pretenses  of,  86 ;  of 
Jesus,  88;  slaves  debarred 
from  the  glories  of,  95  ; 
denying  the  equality  of  men, 
97 ;  Pagan,  109 ;  belonged  to 
the  state,  121;  in  this  his¬ 
tory,  143;  of  Sicilian  slaves. 
197;  used  as  a  cloak.  346; 
note  36;  working  people  had 
none,  345;  communes  numer¬ 
ous  in  the  Piraeus.  513,  note 
46. 

Remains,  honored,  378,  note  14. 

Renaissance,  a  new,  194. 

Renan,  Wescher,  Foucart,  402; 
asserts  the  power  of  the  socie¬ 
ties,  453;  on  the  ancient  dis¬ 
cussions,  454. 

Rencountre,  of  the  nuptials,  92. 
note  18. 

Render  unto  Caesar,  518. 

Rent,  382,  383. 

Republic,  of  Plato  drawn  among 


the  communes  of  the  Piraeus, 
513;  of  the  blessed,  549. 

Rerum  Natura,  greatest  of 
didactic  poems,  60. 

Rescue,  of  Lilybaeum,  260. 

Res  Seaenica,  403;  412. 

Rescue,  the  Mohammedan,  555; 
events  of  the,  494;  of  rank, 
264,  note  43. 

Resemblance,  of  Socrates  and 
Jesus,  553. 

Resignation,  power  of,  562. 

Resistance,  unions  of,  381;  522. 

Restoration,  of  old  unions,  303, 
note  67. 

Restrictive  laws,  compelled  un¬ 
ions  to  appear  religious,  508. 

Resuscitation,  of  harsh  old  lawl 
315,  note  108 ;  prevented,  532. 

Retaliation,  332 ;  of  Spartacus, 
by  forcing  the  Romans  to 
fight  as  gladiators,  308,  309; 
and  cut  showing  the  scene, 
332;  of  Eunus,  549. 

Retribution,  to  Aquillius,  Lu- 
cullus  &  Servilius,  273-4;  ter¬ 
rible,  of  Spartacus,  308;  of 
Eunus.  550;  of  Mithridates, 
273. 

Revenge,  of  Hennotius,  168-69, 
note  7 ;  of  Spartacus,  332. 

Revival,  of  the  old  funereal 
wake,  308,  note  85;  the 
present  labor  movement  a. 
510,  572. 

Revolt,  prevented  b;  supersti¬ 
tion  76;  always  feared  by  the 
masters,  79;  was  common  in 
Chios  170;  at  Syracuse,  of 
slaves,  251,  note  13;  of  pro¬ 
digious  extent  against  Spar¬ 
tacus,  319;  and  vengeance, 
331. 

Revolution,  not  involved  in  any 
change  from  competitive  to 
co-operative  systems,  38 ; 
great  social ;  57 ;  description 
of  the,  63;  begun  by  Christ, 
122;  the  magnitude  of,  384; 
that  destroved  the  idcntitv 

v 


G7G 


INDEX. 


of  paganism,  443;  the  war, 
the  red  flag  at  the  outbreak, 
492;  events  of  the,  494. 

Revue  Archeologique,  453 ;  arti¬ 
cle  quoted  from,  505,  506,  567. 

Reward,  given  to  slave  inform¬ 
ants,  149;  note  12. 

Rhadamanthus,  95,  note  24. 

Rhea,  Ceres,  Isis,  'ybele,  one 
and  the  same,  470,  471. 

Rhegium  in  Cisalpine  Gaul,  423. 

Rhodes,  461;  communes  at  493; 
one  of  the  early  Christian 
seats,  513;  the  inscriptions 
of,  169,  note  10. 

Ricardo,  Jewish  speculator,  43. 

Rich  men,  Cimon,  137,  note  16. 

Rights,  equal,  40;  Spartacus, 
297,  note  54.  , 

Robes,  Greek,  of  ram.:,  264.  note 
43. 

Rock,  lined  maw  of  Tavgetus, 
533. 

Rodbertus,  71. 

Rogers,  Social  Life  of  Scotland, 
466,  note  1. 

Romans,  were  Aryans,  48  ;  used 
competitive  idea,  48;  private 
property  early  recognized, 
68;  downfall  of  their  empire, 
84;  literary  era.  of  the,  123; 
for  social  and  servile  wars 
see  chapters  under  those 
heads;  conspira^  ,  148; 

treachery  of,  LSI;  attempt  to 
enslave  all  Spain,  188;  con- 
question  of  Achia  by  the,  210; 
depended  on  the  militia  to 
crush  Eunus,  211;  armies  of 
organized  to  quell  rebellions, 
211;  slow  to  realize  t  e  power 
of  Eunus,  213;  armies  of.  de¬ 
feated  by  Eunus  and  his  gen¬ 
erals,  218;  cities  of  the,  built 
of  wood.  360. 

Romanelli’s  inscription  of  gladi¬ 
atorial  fight  with  wild  beasts, 
411. 

Romulus,  gives  to  married  men 
power  over  female  slaves, 


147,  note  8. 

Roscher,  38. 

Rose,  learned  Greek  scholar,  343. 

Ross’  Inscriptions  Greques,  462. 

Rotatory  form  of  mutual  com¬ 
munity,  507. 

Ri  dimental  colors,  470,  note  10. 

Runaways  etc.,  cremated,  75; 
slaves  called  psomokolaphoi 
among  the  Chians,  169,  174; 
slaves,  inscription,  291,  note 
40;  slaves,  C94. 

Runs,  forced  to  make  the  runs 
of  gladiators,  407. 

Rupillius,  ,  fth  man  sent 
against  Eunus,  218;  malfeas 
ance,  225,  note  94;  consul  at¬ 
tacks  Eunus,  228. 

Rhythm,  of  Aristotle,  542. 

S 

Sabelline  judgment,  342,  note 

21. 

Sacerdotal  seat  or  chair,  431. 

Sackcloth  and  ashes,  499. 

Sacred,  hearth,  69;  and  civil 
communes,  113,  note  63;  as¬ 
sociations,  362,  note  12; 
which  unions,  445,  note  2 ; 
unions  so  defined  under  the 
law  445,  not-:  2;  questions, 
523. 

Sacrifice,  Pagan  mode  of,  51 ; 
rites  of,  92;  given  by  Viria- 
thus,  183,  note  7;  of"  Salvius 
to  the  Twins,  257  263  n.  8 ; 
at  Messana,  269 ;  human, 
278;  avenging  of  Spartacus, 
304,  n  77,  asked  by  Lollius, 
378,  note  14;  Archon,  505. 

Saddle  and  bridle-makers,  484-5 

Saga  and  toga,  when  used,  477, 
note  25. 

Sngum  and  vexillum,  476,  477. 

Sailors,  a  trade  union  Of.  119, 
127. 

Sailors’  union,  sacred  to  Min¬ 
erva,  429,  note  3. 

Saint,  Bartholomew  massacre 


INDEX. 


G77 


of,  102 ;  originated  by  egoism, 
85 ;  Cyril,  452 ;  Flour,  489 ; 
Germain-Lembi  on,  industrial 
suburb  of  Paris,  489 ;  Simon, 
the  originator  of  the  term 
“bourgeoisie”  526. 

Salarius,  392 ;  origin  of  the 
word  “salary,”  392,  note  8. 

Sallust,  165;  mutilated  works 
of,  211;  regretable  loss,  299, 
note  57 ;  describes  the  battle 
of  Mt.  Garganus,  306,  note 
80. 

Salona,  estate  of  Dioletian  at, 
547. 

Salt  works,  392. 

Saltatrix,  saltatricula,  407. 

Salvation,  doctrine  of,  taught 
by  Christ,  517 ;  in  the  plan  of 
Eunus  and  others  548,  sqq. 

Salvius,  first  mention  of,  254; 
elected  slave-king,  254,  note 
20;  a  flute  player,  messiah 
and  prophet,  263;  his  history 
finished,  263,  sq. 

Samos,  in  the  labor  war,  235. 

Sandal,  (solea),  how  made,  420. 

Sagum  caeruleum,  475. 

Sankhaya  Kapila,  460. 

Sanscrit  language,  mixed  by 
the  gypsies  with  Latin,  426. 

Santorin,  isle  of,  where  the  so¬ 
cieties  were  very  numerous, 
452. 

Sardinia,  va>t  numbers  of 
slaves  from,  193. 

Satan,  89;  king  of  the  earth, 
556. 

Satirical  writings  of  Ovid,  Pro¬ 
pertius,  Martialis,  were  in 
evervbody’s  hands.  436,  note 
20. 

Satrapy  of  Rome,  243. 

Saturn,  his  government,  spoken 
of  by  Plato,  47,  note  1 ;  -Jupi¬ 
ter’s  escape  from,  89. 

Saturnalia,  123;  the  feats  dur¬ 
ing  which  all  mankind  were 
equal,  338 ;  a  great  harvest 
festival,  502. 


Satyrs,  248;  Ceres  adored  by, 
477. 

Satyros,  and  the  mutual  fratri¬ 
cide,  273. 

Sauromatides,  countless  women 
of  ancient  Crete,  340,  note  17. 

Sausage  -maker,  ^Eschines  son 
of  a,  543. 

Sayings,  doings,  prayers,  com¬ 
pared,  525;  sayings  of  Socra¬ 
tes,  561. 

Scamander,  scene  of  great  bat¬ 
tle,  270. 

Scars,  of  Aquillius,  273,  note  68. 

Scaurus,  built  theatre  at  Rome, 
401,  402. 

Scene,  of  vengeance,  227 ;  ad¬ 
juster,  403,  note  6. 

Seenicorum  collegium,  402. 

Schambach,  quotations  from, 
277  to  330  notes. 

Schliemann,  110. 

School,  of  gladiators,  289  and 
notes  36,  37 ;  of  mutual  love 
and  care,  365;  scholae  praecep- 
tores,  407 ;  of  idol  manufac¬ 
ture,  431  of  Ageladas,  435. 

Science,  evidence  accumulated 
by  diggers  in,  59  ;  heeds  not 
the  tablets  and  inscriptions, 
84;  a  young  female  seen  by 
Lucian  in  a  dream,  543. 

Scillato,  ancient  Ancyle,  251. 

Scilly  Isles,  483. 

Scio  or  Chios,  strike  in  the  isl¬ 
and  of,  163. 

Scipio  and  Hannibal,  153 ;  Afri- 
canus,  218;  Africanus,  Grac¬ 
chus  his  grandson.  241. 

Scirtheaea,  a  drawn  battle,  267. 

Scopas  and  other  great  artists, 
435. 

Scourges,  scourged  c.  hung  upon 
the  cross,  154.  note  27,  475; 
for  lictors,  477. 

Scroll,  2.000  years  are  but  a, 
525. 

Sculptor,  (signarius  artifex), 
p.  368;  Lucian’s  dream,  544. 

Sculpture,  a  great  era  of  Gre- 


678 


INDEX. 


cian,  128  ;  of  Spartaeus,  284, 
note  21;  the  great  master  of, 
101. 

Seaport  of  Athens,  see  Piraeus. 

Seats,  cushioned  seats  of  the 
gods,  3G0. 

Second  coming,  the  labor  move¬ 
ment,  557. 

Secret  and  secrecy  of  the 
unions,  4C1;  recognition,  110, 
note  50 ;  societies  in  Homer’s 
time,  111;  intense  secrecy  of 
the  unions,  346;  organiza¬ 
tions  carried  red  banners, 
471;  of  red  dyes  lost,  how, 
479,  480;  cult  secret  in 

Canaan,  501 ;  communes,  and 
great  men  who  knew  of  them, 
514;  commune,  and  its 
ancient  cult,  554. 

Sedition,  of  soldiers  of  Sparta- 
cus,  306,  note  80. 

Seething,  fluid,  248,  note  3. 

Self-command,  superhuman  of 
Oomanus,  227;  aid,  410;  de¬ 
fense,  counter  organizations 
in,  525;  defeating,  527. 

Selfishness,  of  prayers,  563. 

Semeion,  or  vexillum,  467. 

Semetic  family,  Hebrew  branch, 
40;  race-struggles  with  the 
Arvans,  4l;  racelcharacteris- 
tics,  48;  laboring  classes  or¬ 
ganized,  68 ;  enterprise.  124  ; 
used  in  collateral  evidence, 
526. 

Senatus  consulti,  340. 

Sentinum,  inscription  of  the 
rag-pickers  found  at,  423. 

Sentius  (Cneus),  the  man  who 
died  while  yet  a  youth,  383, 
note  26. 

Septuagint  convention,  564. 

Sepulcralia,  or  Roman  burial 
societies,  343. 

Sepulchres,  sarcophagi  and 
mausoleums.  429. 

Sepulture,  right  of,  7ft:  dread 
of  being  deprived  of,  75. 

Sermon  on  the  Mount,  549. 


Servile  wars,  54;  of  Sicily,  77; 
of  Spartaeus,  what  caused  by, 
284;  revolt,  considered  a  na¬ 
tional  degradation,  294;  also 
433,  508,  and  see  chapters  on 
the  war-strikes  of  the  ancient 
workingmen. 

vServilianus,  defeated  by  Viri- 
athus  at  Erisane,  187. 

Servilius,  reduced  to  disgrace, 
274. 

Servius  Tullius,  king  of  Rome, 
146,  156.  161;  Suipicius  Gal- 
ba,  a  Roman  commander, 
179;  Tullius  and  Numa,  suc¬ 
ceeded  by  a  rapacious  slave¬ 
holding  policy,  398. 

Setia,  a  city  in  Italy,  149 ;  the 
revolt  of  slaves  at,  150,  151, 
note  18;  traitors,  228. 

Seven  Apocalvptic  churches, 
512. 

Sexes,  relation  between,  among 
the  ancient  slaves,  77 ;  work¬ 
ing  together  naked  in  the 
various  mines,  138;  both  like¬ 
wise  in  same  condition  at  the 
games,  530. 

Sharpeners,  of  swords  and  jav¬ 
elins,  411. 

Shepherd,  see  Athenion,  Aris- 
tonicus,  Cleon  and  the  word, 
farmer;  and  farmer,  nick¬ 
named  bacchanal,  160,  note 
'38;  humble  and  without  am¬ 
bitions,  514. 

Shinglers,  377,  note  10. 

Shoemakers,  Cicero’s  contempt, 
and  nickname  of,  380.  note 
20;  quarrels  of,  484,  note  45; 
Order  of  Crispins  took  the 
red  flag,  483. 

Shop-keepers,  of  Aristotle,  540. 

Sicilian  Olympus,  the,  88;  ser¬ 
vile  war,  513. 

Sicily,  disastrous  strike  in.  133, 
142;  effects  of  third  Punic 
war.  178;  shocking  condition 
of  slaves.  194;  Eunus  made 
king  of,  196;  Gfeek  language 
spoken,  197;  the  granary  of 


INDEX. 


the  world,  258,  304;  tramps 
of,  torn  open  by  tramps,  261 
and  note  37. 

Sickle,  569,  note  109. 

Sidon  and  Tyre,  home  of  all  the 
Phicenicians,  488. 

Siege,  of  Enna  by  Piso,  224; 
second  of  Enna,  228 ;  of 
Leucse,  242;  of  Lilybaeum, 
260;  by  Lucullus  of  Triocala, 
267,  note  49. 

Signs  (private)  not  inscrip¬ 
tions  of  the  societies,  366,368. 

Silarus,  and  Macella,  great  bat¬ 
tles,  271;  head  waters  of, 
324;  battle  of  324-5,  327 
note  128. 

Silver,  mines  of  Attica,  100; 
the  Laurian,  134;  cane  of 
Athenion,  259  and  note  33 ; 
and  gold  workers,  374; 
smiths,  383  note  26,  and  see 
strike. 

Similarity  between  Socrates 
and  Jesus,  560. 

Sin,  a  terrible,  478,  523.  524. 

Sinus  Sejestanus,  258. 

Siphon,  in  use  before  Christ. 
571. 

Sister  of  Horatius  murdered  by 
him,  475,  note  22. 

Situations,  procured  by  the  un¬ 
ions,  511;  see  co-operation. 

Size  of  army  of  Eunus,  218;  of 
Spartacus,  324-5 ;  see  army. 

Skinned,  human  beings,  278. 

Slabs,  the  ancient,  lying  unob¬ 
served,  in  their  original  places 
or  in  museums,  xi ;  are  being 
constantly  unearthed,  110; 
the  law  record  d  on,  71. 

Slave,  relics  of  the  ancient,  67 ; 
equals  of  their  masters,  68 ; 
system  among  Aryans,  68; 
African,  68;  a  rich  man’s 
children  became,  69 ;  run¬ 
away.  70.  175  to  177 ;  not 
mentioned  by  the  very 
ancient  writers,  71;  the  con¬ 
tempt  of  masters  for,  72 ; 
poor  outlook  in  ancient  times 


679' 

for  the,  74;  slaveholders  used 
to  kill  their  children,  74;  the 
fear  of,  75;  superstition  at 
first  prevented  his  revolt,  76; 
he  multiplied  within  his  own 
estate,  77 ;  branded  and 
marked  on  face  and  else¬ 
where,  79,  196,  note  17,  385, 
note  30;  poorly  fed,  46,  note 
16,  79,  385,  note  30;  emanci¬ 
pation  of,  80 ;  system,  81 ;  dif¬ 
ferentiation  in  his  favor,  83; 
self-enfranchised,  85 ;  denied 
the  right  of  burial,  85;  but 
his  body  burned,  86;  or  hung 
up  to  rot,  299;  murdered  by 
his  masters,  86;  was  ad¬ 
mitted  into  the  brotherhood, 
98,  note  27,  169,  355;  social 
condition  in  Greece,  99 ;  of 
war,  103;  trade,  103,  266, 
note  27 ;  prices  paid  for  his 
hire,  137 ;  of  Athens  deserts, 
140 ;  one  man  sometimes 
owned  a  great  many,  135,  see 
numbers;  his  attempt  to 
burn  Rome,  146;  assisted  by 
king  Servius  Tullius,  147 ; 
insurrection  of  Scio,  163,  see 
Drimakos;  fear  of  his  rebel¬ 
lions,  141,  164;  citizens  •  of 
Enna  massacred  by,  202; 
system,  Eunus  attempts  to 
destroy  the,  207 ;  vengeance 
of  the,  at  Enna,  209 ;  often 
became  brigands,  215;  many 
a  Roman  general  in  Sicily 
was  defeated  by  the,  218; 
slaves  of  Eunus  were  social¬ 
ists,  223;  Piso  defeated  and 
driven  by  a,  225 ;  in  the  ma¬ 
jority,  249 ;  set  free  by  Spar¬ 
tacus,  302;  numbers  that 
were  crucified,  330:  system, 
inroads  upon  by  the  trade 
unions,  442;  had  a  religion, 
472;  his  condition  in  Phoeni¬ 
cia,  498;  crammed  popula¬ 
tions  of  Plato,  548-9;  dens  of 
Sicily,  549. 


680 


INDEX. 


Slavery,  partly  abolished 
among  the  Hebrews,  39 ; 
origin  of,  49;  a  second  con¬ 
dition  in  the  establishment 
of  society,  54 ;  earlier  than 
communism,  68 ;  resistance 
of  slaves  to,  68;  at  present, 
that  of  chattels  is  extinct, 
68;  unwritten  age  of,  71; 
society  outgrowing,  71;  long 
night  of,  78;  phenomena  of, 
93;  degradation  of  Spartan, 
102;  the  curse  of,  111;  Plato 
believed  it  just,  119;  hideous 
conditions,  156;  supersti¬ 
tions  against,  168,  169; 

Viriathus’  fight  against,  188; 
immense  growth  of,  just  be¬ 
fore  Christ’s  time,  192;  in 
Asia  Minor,  233 ;  reviewed, 
286,  note  27,  141,  note  37, 
146,  164,  note  2;  the  anti¬ 
thesis  of  trade  unionism, 
366;  Romans  grasped  Plato’s 
fashionable  idea  of,  and  ca¬ 
lamities  which  resulted,  549. 

Saveholders,  wealth  and  num¬ 
bers,  314-5;  see  numbers. 

Sleight  of  hand,  254,  note  20. 

Slings,  378,  379,  380. 

Slipper,  half-slipper,  419. 

Smart,  in  sallies  and  satire, 
535. 

Smokers  of  wine,  382. 

Smyrna,  burial  place  of  Cras- 
sus,  242. 

Snakes,  superstition  of  Grac¬ 
chus,  240. 

Social  wars,  nearly  all  turn  out 
disastrously  for  cause,  xii.; 
ages  of  past,  marked  by  a 
want  of  feeling,  65;  organi¬ 
zations,  ancient,  69 ;  habits 
of  poor,  77 ;  wars,  84,  97 ; 
life  of  working  people,  88; 
condition  of  slaves  in  Greece, 
99;  wars,  99,  110;  organiza¬ 
tions  that  helped  Spartacus, 
to  almost  achieve  a  remark¬ 
able  conquest,  301. 


Socialism,  38;  not  easily  seen 
through  competitive  system, 
43;  the  perfect,  101;  employ¬ 
ment  by  the  state,  380,  note 
19;  381,  n.  21;  none  beyond 
the  family,  496;  of  Jesus, 
497 ;  in  the  festivities,  state 
paid  the  bills,  505 ;  the  radi¬ 
cal  of  Lycurgus,  527. 

Socialistic  system,  59;  organi¬ 
zations,  97 ;  a  state,  121 ; 
Germany  stifled  the  efforts 
of,  71;  enjoying  their  booty 
in  common,  223. 

Society,  present  condition  of, 
toned  by  Mosaic  law,  45;  its 
deeds  of,  transmitted  by  his¬ 
tory  and  archaeology,  48;  first 
form  of,  48;  conditions  in 
the  establishment  of,  54;  an¬ 
cient,  113;  middle  condition 
of,  55;  developed  by  ethics, 
63 ;  history  of  ancient,  67 ; 
outcasts  of,  69;  will  outgrow 
slavery,  71;  began  with  the 
bully,  84 ;  two  ancient  classes 
of,  96;  two  great  classes  of 
Lacedaemonian,  101. 

Sociology,  students  of,  71,  80, 
97;  students  of,  are  forced 
to  drop  Plato,  445;  consis¬ 
tency  with  the  study  of,  501. 

Socrates,  recognized  the  labor 
unions,  74;  Plato,  Aristotle, 
Anaxagoras  and  Diogenes, 
worshiped  immortal  gods, 
430,  486,  at  the  Piraeus,  513; 
one  of  5  remarkable  charac¬ 
ters,  514;  on  the  God  of 
love,  553,  note  76;  Crito  & 
Phaedo,  562;  a  member  of 
the  brotherhood,  553. 

Sodales,  what  they  were,  127, 
n.  87;  of  Italy,  77,  364;  ful- 
lonum,  415;  corresponded  to 
the  thiasotes,  508 ;  unions  of 
the,  suppressed,  344,  note,  29. 

Soissons,  Crispins  ■  settled  at, 
421 ;  seat  of  the  Crispins, 
483. 


INDEX. 


681 


Soldier  of  high  stock,  381. 

Solemnities  of  labor  unions, 
378,  note  14. 

Solidarities,  rural,  464. 

Solitudo  Magistratuum,  474, 
and  note  20. 

Solomon,  trade  unions  as  early 
as,  115;  King  of  the  Jews, 
123;  the  temple,  373. 

Solon,  laws  of,  100,  113;  regu¬ 
lations  of,  119,  123;  trade 
unions  under  laws  of,  126; 
Solon  and  Numa’s  law  the 
same,  337,  n.  13;  law  of  Solon 
and  of  the  Twelve  Tables 
identical,  347 ;  Solon  of 
Athens,  followed  Numa’s 
trade  union  scheme,  359 ;  his 
homotaphoi  or  common  ta¬ 
bles,  510. 

Solution,  the  natural  of  the 
problems,  573. 

Sons  born  to  the  gods,  49,  note  4. 

Soothsayers,  Etruscan,  154, 

note  27. 

Sophists,  39,  132. 

Sophocles  and  Euripides,  401. 

Sorties,  of  Cleon,  225. 

Sosias,  a  Thracian  contractor, 

137. 

Soter,  or  Messiah,  462. 

Sottishness,  false  opinion,  503. 

Soul,  see  immortality;  consult 
chapter  iv.,  Eleusinian  Mys¬ 
teries;  apothegm  of  Lucre¬ 
tius,  60:  a  philosophy  which 
denies  the  immortality  of 
the,  62 ;  origin  of  and  belief 
in,  47-66;  fed  the  disengaged, 
75  and  note  ^2;  of  states,  303, 
note  73 ;  who  plod  without, 
466;  slave-souls  of  Plato, 
539;  of  Aristotle’s  theory, 
540. 

Soup  spoons,  spits,  ladles, 
bowls,  cups,  399. 

Southern  states,  slavery  of,  77. 

Spain,  slavery  drove  free  labor 
from,  156;  see  wars  of'Viri- 
athus  in,  pp.  178-90. 


Sparta,  massacres  of,  97;  its 
war  with  Messenia,  98,  103; 
brutal  spirit  and  unfeeling- 
ness,  132;  jealous  of  Athens, 
141;  slaves  dangerous,  211. 

Spartacus,  great  general ;  is 
compared  with  Hannibal  and 
Napoleon,  viii. ;  punishment 
for  rebellion,  xii.;  allusions 
to,  62,  120,  148,  149 ;  upris¬ 
ing  of,  140,  note  3;  well  re¬ 
ceived  in  Apulia  and  Meta- 
pontem,  158-9;  his  fortune¬ 
telling  wife,  168;  was  a  poor 
man,  181;  the  prodigious 
conflict,  187 ;  in*  winter  quar¬ 
ters  he  disallowed  gold  and 
silver,  202;  was  called  a  rob¬ 
ber,  215;  a  Thracian,  but 
family  unknown,  282,  note 
13;  in  nil  respects  a  working¬ 
man,  282;  legends  of,  284;  a 
man  of  giant  frame,  further 
description  of,  285,  288,  290; 
a  serpent  coils  about  his 
head,  290,  note  37;  escape  of, 
292 ;  elected  commander-in¬ 
chief,  294  ;  line  of  march  and 
tactics,  300’;  humane  quali¬ 
ties  and  character,  302-3, 
305,  311;  required  to  march 
through  Campania  to  Rome, 
321 ;  after  the  death  of 
Crixus,  lie  marches  to  the  Po, 
507 ;  and  his  army  hemmed 
in,  323:  his  death,  324-332; 
70  years  after  him,  Christ 
came,  493  ;  one  of  the  5  re¬ 
markable  men,  514;  his 
mightiness,  551. 

Spartans,  under  Lycurgus.  69 ; 
a  favored  class,  101 ;  com¬ 
pared  to  the  Athenians,  139 ; 
an  unsympathetic  people, 
103;  believed  slavery  was 
right,  119,  division  of  land, 
530;  senators,  531. 

Species,  preservation  of,  42. 

Spectacles,  gladiatorial,  277, 
and  note  1. 


682 


INDEX. 


t 

Speculators  in  human  flesh,  412. 

Speech,  of  Drimakos,  169,  note, 
172;  of  Christ,  557. 

Spencer,  59. 

Spice  unions,  393;  gums,  nuts, 
seeds  and  other  raw  materials 
of  the  perfumers,  434. 

Spinners’,  weavers’,  dyers’  and 
tailors’  overseers  had  charge 
of  the  state  work  shops,  419. 

Spirit-worship,  command 
against  in  Mosaic  law,  54. 

Split-corn  grits  for  slaves,  383, 
note  26. 

Spoleto,  inscription  of  fullers’ 
union  found  at,  416. 

Spooks  and  goblins,  248,  note 
3;  see  asylum,  also  goblin. 

Sportula,  figures  in  the  laws 
governing  sacred  unions,  399. 

Spouting  monstrous  sparks, 
248,  note  3. 

Spurius  Rutilus,  a  Roman  trib¬ 
une,  145. 

Squares,  of  the  Roman  army, 
320,  note  119. 

Standard,  white  at  Rome,  481. 

Star-gazer,  Athenion,  259,  260, 
note  35. 

Starvation  of  human  chattels, 
405 ;  of  Morgantion,  227 ;  of 
Cleon,  260;  wages,  526. 

State,  ancient  social,  123; 
slaves  owmed  by  the,  383, 
note  26;  factories,  416,  note 
5;  control  of  works,  417-19; 
without  distinction  is  with¬ 
out  slaves,  522;  paid  the  fes¬ 
tive  bills,  at  Anthesteria,  505 ; 
the  celebrated,  538;  owner¬ 
ship,  567. 

Statesman,  a  work  by  Plato, 
118;  of  Aristotle,  540. 

Statistics,  of  gladiators,  279, 
note  5;  of  slaves’  living,  in¬ 
scribed  on  the  Egyptian 
pyramid,  446,  note  4;  of  cru¬ 
cifixions,  330,  517. 

Statue,  of  Augustus,  80;  of  the 
Greek  Athena,  101  „  125. 


Statute,  the  most  renowned  of 
antiquity,  474. 

Stealing,  authorized  by  Lycur- 
gus,  69,  note  8 ;  even  taught 
the  children,  532. 

Stichus,  on  the  faces  of  slaves, 
79;  their  brands,  385,  n.  30. 

Still  small  voice,  523. 

Stoa,  of  Zeno,  543. 

Stock-farms,  the  German,  344, 
note  30;  breeding,  528. 

Stoicism,  464. 

Stolo  (Licinius),  law  of,  222, 
note  84;  see  Gracchus. 

Stonehenge,  massacre  of,  102. 

Stone  masons,  of  Athens,  127 ; 
cutters,  369,  369,  remains, 
450. 

Strabo,  112,  205. 

Strangers,  admitted  to  the 
membership,  509. 

Stratonice,  crowning  of,  463, 
and  plate;  honored  l’ubilee, 
463,  504. 

Strikes,  ancient,  unknown  to 
the  living  age,  viii. ;  turned 
out  to  be  disastrous  in  most 
cases,  xii. ;  evidence  regard¬ 
ing  them,  67,  1 ;  the  ancient 

and  modern,  133;  in  Greece, 
Rome  and  Sicily,  133 ;  of  the 
20,000,  at  Declea,  134,  note 
1,  140,  473;  one  that  decided 
the  Peloponnesian  war,  138; 
the  servile  wars,  140,  note  32. 
155;  one  at  Sunion,  142,  144, 
of  slaves  in  Macedonian 
mines,  144,  note  42;  of  slaves 
at  Rome,  146;  of  Setia,  149, 
note  12;  in  Etruria,  155,  157; 
in  Apulia,  159;  at  Enna  in 
Sicily,  195;  causes  of  rup¬ 
ture  of  Eunus,  198,  see  Eunus ; 
in  Asia  Minor  outlined,  237 ; 
a  match  for,  270;  strife-war, 
hero  of  the,  513;  see  Eunus, 
Spartacus  and  Drimakos. 

Strongoli  or  Nsethus,  326. 

Struggle,  going  on,  43;  human¬ 
ity’s  ancient,  68 ;  an  early, 


INDEX. 


683 


between  rich  and  poor,  99; 
did  our  era  rise  from  labor 
struggles?  523,  sq. 

Styx,  flowing  between  Hades 
and  Elysium,  90. 

Suffrage,  woman,  391,  and 
notes. 

Suicide,  of  Comanus,  227 ;  of 
Blossius,  241  and  note  19; 
the  mutual,  of  Satyr  os  and 
braves,  273;  forbidden  by  a 
rule  and  penalty  of  burial 
society,  355. 

Sun-god,  Syrian,  236;  worship, 
in  Asia  Minor,  236  and  note 
9,  373,  note  4;  worship  of 
Nemesis,  413,  note  36,  450, 
471;  god  Apollo,  463,  491; 
brilliant  and  flaming  color  of, 
469,  69 ;  worship,  the  com¬ 
mon,  or  popular  faith,  in 
England,  482;  heliopolitai  or 
farmer-warriors  of  Aristoni- 
cus,  550. 

Sundays,  none  for  workers,  135. 

Sundikoi,  lawyers,  453. 

Sunion,  castle  of,  100,  143;  the 
miners’  strike  at,  142,  note 
38;  an  Athenian  mining  city, 
145;  bloody  mutiny  of  slaves, 
143. 

Superintendent,  of  public  works, 
inscription  showing  political 
action  of  unions,  383,  n.  26. 

Superstition,  of  Egyptians,  45 ; 
of  slaves  checked  their  revolt, 
76;  was  the  masters’  bulwark 
of  protection,  81 ;  among  the 
Greeks,  107,  note  49 ;  of  the 
Chians  about  Drimakos,  177 : 
in  favor  of  Eunus,  216;  and 
of  Gracchus,  240. 

Supplicium,  the  noble,  499. 

Suppression  of  the  unions,  301, 
note  65 ;  of  religious  unions, 
347,  note  40;  of  all  unions, 
362,  note  11;  union  of  eran- 
ists,  bv  council  of  Laodicia, 
511. 

Survival,  man  fighting  for,  61 ; 


of  Trvphon  and  Athenion, 
266. 

Sussitoi,  common  table  com¬ 
munes,  510. 

Sutlers,  union  of,  397. 

Sutores,  or  shoemakers,  421. 

Sweeping  extermination,  219. 

Switzerland,  fossils  of,  72. 

Swoon  that  fell  over  mankind, 
494,  495. 

Sword-makers,  377,  not  10. 

Symbiosis  philia,  name  of  Greek 
commune,  502. 

Symbols  of  the  ancient  farm, 
66 ;  of  human  labor,  482 ;  her¬ 
aldic,  483. 

Symethus,  river,  212,  255. 

Sympathy,  see  irascibility,  con¬ 
cupiscence;  growth  of,  206; 
there  arose  an  occasional 
character,  500 ;  irascibility, 
concupiscence,  515;  how 
formed,  560. 

Symposiums,  see  cuts  and  illus¬ 
trations  representing  various 
ancient ;  customs  and  man¬ 
ners  at  a,  111,  note  55;  pray¬ 
ers  and  paeans  of,  363,  461. 

Syncope,  that  fell  upon  man¬ 
kind,  494. 

Synod,  or  sometimes  called  the 
synagogue,  461. 

Synodoi,  Greek,  the  synods,  501. 

Syracuse,  unions  at,  1 13 ; 
Plato’s  experience  at,  118; 
and  the  great  strike,  146, 
213;  proof  that  it  was  taken 
by  Eunus,  221;  slaves  strag¬ 
gling  from,  248;  theatre  at, 
401. 

Syria,  great  numbers  brought 
from,  as  slaves,  to  Rome, 
195 ;  slaves  organized  in, 
197;  Greek  Spoken  in,  197; 
Ceres  worshiped  in,  198; 
IGreek  speaking  unions  of, 
502. 

System,  slave,  87;  of  common 
proprietorship,  69 ;  patriarch- 
ship,  73. 


684 


INDEX. 


T 

Tabernacle,  40. 

Table,  the  common,  115,  note 
67,  see  Roscher ;  meals  in 
common  suppressed  by  Pyrr¬ 
hus,  287,  note  28 ;  mate  of 
Philip  the  kin£,  545 ;  see 
communism  or  triclinium ; 
the  Twelve,  see  the  Twelve 
Tables. 

Tablets,  unheeded  by  science, 
84,  367 ;  see  inscription. 

Tactics  of  Eunus,  extermina¬ 
tion,  219;  of  Athenion,  259, 
260  and  274,  note  70;  against 
enclosure  in  sieges,  269,  274, 
note  70;  military,  of  Rome 
adopted  by  Spartacus,  290, 
note  37 ;  of  Crassus  u>  teaze, 
313. 

Taint,  upon  labor,  72,  78,  466, 
533  and  537 ;  some  strong 
men  dared  be  brave,  546. 

Talismans,  emblems,  mementos 
and  charms,  435,  556. 

Tamia,  a  stewardess  or  house¬ 
wife,  453. 

Tarentine  gulf,  158,  211;  city, 
the  slaves  captured  at,  192, 
and  300. 

Tarpeian  rock,  154,  note  27. 

Tarquin,  king  of  Rome,  147. 

Tartarus,  93,  123. 

Tartessus,  Romans  fortify  them¬ 
selves  at,  185. 

Tassels,  of  banners,  484,  486. 

Tasters,  union  of,  398. 

Tauromanion,  number  of  work¬ 
ingmen  massacred  at,  xii. ; 
taken  by  Eunus,  but  recap¬ 
tured  226. 

Tax  gatherers,  unions  of,  119, 
349,  382 ;  slabs  showing  great 
numbers  of  such,  440,  441,  & 
442;  gatherers,  chap,  xx.,  pp. 
437,  443;  of  forgers  and  min¬ 
ers,  442,  note  10. 

Taygetus,  dashed  to  jelly  on  the 
rocks  of,  533. 


Teamsters  (veetuarii*  and  the 
collectors,  440. 

Technitai,  of  Aristotle,  541. 

Tectoriolse,  little  plaster  images, 
432. 

Temple,  of  Demeter,  81;  Apollo, 
81;  of  Megaron,  91,  95;  built 
by  the  outcasts,  ^8;  of  Jeru¬ 
salem,  how  built,  123;  of  Sol¬ 
omon  and  Hiram,  124 ;  Eleusis 
125;  of  Minerva,  137;  of  the 
horoon,  dedicated  by  the  Chi¬ 
ans  to  the  manes  o-  Drimakos, 
176-177,  note  19;  of  Ceres  at 
Enna,  198;  of  Thalia,  248  and 
note  3 ;  great,  erected  through 
government  employ,  380,  note 
19;  of  Jupiter,  463. 

Tenets,  business  of  sacred  com¬ 
munes,  113,  note  63;  of  Syr¬ 
ian  theogony,  236-7 ;  of  the 
thiasos,  503,  note  18. 

Tents,  of  Roman  military  sys¬ 
tem,  467,  note  5. 

Tertullian,  in  defense  of  the 
early  Christians,  527. 

Testament,  of  Attalus,  233. 

Textores,  and  textrices,  422. 

Thalia,  nymph,  247 ;  the  tem¬ 
ple  to  her  Twins,  248  note  3. 

Thames  river,  487. 

Thaetetus,  of  Plato,  118. 

Theatres,  their  size,  401 ;  see 
circus,  amphitheatre. 

Tlieophanes,  165. 

Theophilus,  452. 

Theophrastus,  knew  of  the  com¬ 
munities,  507. 

Theseus,  battle  with  the  Ama¬ 
zons,  87,  note  12,  130;  unions 
as  early  as,  115. 

Theta,  Greek  letter,  meaning 
on  the  inscription,  “death,” 
279. 

Thiasos,  of  the  Greeks,  114;  the 
prophets  of  the,  203 ;  transla¬ 
tion  from  stone  tablets,  454 ; 
defined.  449,  493,  and  shown 
in  plate  facing  page  451 ;  also 
463,  493 ;  “non  bacchicus- 


INDEX. 


685 


cst,”  504,  note  22;  became 
mellow  soil,  511. 

Theirs,  489. 

Thrace,  mines  in,  137 ;  Sparta¬ 
cus’  home,  285,  note  22;  wife 
of  Spartacus  also  from,  290. 

Thucydides,  105,  139,  536; 

wrote  whiie  in  exile,  107 ;  he 
owned  mines  in  Macedonia, 
137. 

Thuria  seized  by  Spartacus, 
300,  note  59;  where  he  estab¬ 
lished  a  large  armory,  375. 

Thyratira,  taken  by  Aristoni- 
cus,  237. 

'liber  river,  112,  155;  valley, 
unions  of,  133,  note  62,  38*9, 
note  1. 

Tibicenes,  Roman  and  Aule- 
trids,  Greek  flute-players,  409. 

Tigers,  panthers,  bears,  etc., 
411. 

Tin  islands,  or  Cassiterides, 
483. 

Titinus  Gaddaeus’  treachery, 
252. 

Toga,  peace  garment,  .476; 
peace  garment,  red,  477 ;  and 
saga,  when  used,  477,  note 
25 ;  chiton,  chlamys,  hima- 
tion,  481. 

Tombstones,  of  gladiators,  279, 
note  5. 

Tompkins,  Mr.  Henry,  447,  449, 
454,  462. 

Tools,  for  sacrifice,  98,  note  57 ; 
of  labor,  a  difference  be¬ 
tween  ancient  and  modern, 
567 ;  men  and  women,  the  an¬ 
cient,  568,  570;  as  tools  men 
were  nationalized,  570;  and 
they  rebelled  and  killed  their 
masters,  573. 

Torcellum,  slab  of,  inscribed  by 
the  ragpickers  union,  424. 

Toy-gods,  manufacture  of,  429. 

Trades,  organized  in  ancient 
days,  vii. ;  multitude  of  an¬ 
cient  secret,  69;  unions, 

formed  bv  freed  slaves,  85; 

•/ 


existed  early,  86;  are  courts 
of  appeal,  94,  96,  100,  113; 
organizations  of  freedmen, 
112;  as  early  as  Solomon 
and  Theseus,  115  ;  unions  in 
Sicily,  119;  unions,  a  state 
institution,  121;  during  the 
Golden  Age,  122;  at  the 
Piraeus,  125 ;  organization, 
upheld  by  king  Servius,  147  ; 
unions,  crowded  out,  in 
Rome,  192;  unions,  search 
for,  334,  note  1 ;  union  genu¬ 
ine  of  shoemakers,  421 ; 
unions  under  aid  and  guar¬ 
anty  of  government,  437 ; 
unions  the  most  powerful  an¬ 
cient  proletarian  societies, 
348 ;  unions  recognized  and 
employed  by  the  state,  440; 
unions  of  Greece,  461;  unions 
the  same  as  the  eranoi,  507 ; 
Lucian’s  choice  of  a,  543;  of 
Jesus,  521. 

Traders,  of  Canaan,  501,  502. 

Training  school  of  gladiators, 
292,  note  41;  325,  note  124. 

Traitor,  perfidy  and  treachery 
of  the  workingmen  to  each 
other,  151,  note  18,  pp.  187, 
228,  272,  304. 

Tramps,  and  freedmen,  213;  be¬ 
tween  masters  and  slaves 
were  ground  to  powder,  261, 
note  37. 

Transition,  period,  71. 

Translation,  of  Solon’s  law  for 
the  Twelve  Tables,  127,  notes 
87,  88. 

Trans-substantiation,  89. 

Traps  and  tricks  of  Spartacus, 
325,  note  124. 

‘  Treachery,  of  workmen  against 
themselves,  227 ;  of  Nerva, 
251,  note  13;  and  257,  note 
28;  of  Tryphon,  264;  of 
Aquilius,  273 ;  against  Spar¬ 
tacus,  304. 

Tribal  community,  ancient,  68, 
note  5. 


686 


INDEX. 


Tribunal,  slaves  withdrawn  by 
Adrian  from  the  domestic  tri¬ 
bunal,  365. 

Tribunes,  elected  by  the  plebe¬ 
ians,  474,  and  note  20;  Clo- 
dius,  363,  note  15. 

Triclinarchs  or  stewards,  399, 
400. 

Triclinium,  abolished  by  Chris¬ 
tians  as  an  abomination,  400. 

Trident,  of  Neptune,  130,  note 
96. 

Trinkets,  of  the  throne,  413 ; 
the  holy,  as  enormously 
manufactured,  431. 

Trcezen,  tutelary  soter  or  savior 
from,  509. 

Trojans,  114. 

Trumpeter,  408. 

Tryphon,  assumed  name  of 
Salvius,  263 ;  sends  for 
Athenion,  264 ;  his  fear,  265 ; 
death  of,  269,  note  56. 

Tubicen,  408. 

Tull  us  Hostilius,  154  and  note 
27. 

Tumbler,  every  girl  was  a  pro¬ 
fessional,  535. 

Turkey  and  its  red,  490. 

Turning-lathe,  use  of,  taught 
the  Britons,  by  the  Romans, 
485. 

Tutelary,  divinity  of  the  for¬ 
tune  tellers,  413,  note  36; 
saints,  420;  which  controlled 
labor,  481,  487;  banner  of 
Pierrefort,  490;  soters,  509. 

Twelve  Tables,  law  of,  100,  283, 
285;  Dirksen,  on  hetserse  and 
sodales,  115;  Gaius  on  right 
to  combine,  127,  notes  87,  88 ; 
they  permitted  labor  organi¬ 
zation,  303;  celebrated  an¬ 
cient  code,  337 ;  engraved  on 
eleven  slabs,  339;  same  laws 
as  the  Greek,  347,  note  38. 

Twins,  pool  of  the,  248,  note  3 ; 
of  Jupiter  and  Thalia,  247, 
263. 

Tyrannus,  Men,  143,  note  39. 


Tyrant,  of  Sicily,  king  of 
slaves,  404;  the  ephori,  531, 
532,  see  ephori;  Agathocles, 
a  potter,  545. 

Tyre,  Phoenician  city,  123. 

Tyrian  red,  479. 

U 

Ulpian,  on  natural  rights,  552, 
note  69. 

Unions,  of  mercenaries,  77,  78; 
of  slaves,  98,  see  slave;  of  la¬ 
borers  (Greek),  99;  of  clerks, 
114;  of  workingmen  for  re¬ 
sistance,  117;  turned  into 
banditti,  120;  discussion  in 
secret,  126;  dangerous  com¬ 
petitors  of  slavery,  366;  of 
farmers  rare,  443;  synonyms, 
for  different  countries,  502; 
see  organization. 

United  States,  growth  of  la¬ 
bor  movements  in  the,  126; 
the  great  civil  war,  140,  note 
31;  bureau  of  labor,  146; 
note  3 ;  appropriately  adopted 
the  stars  and  stripes,  470. 

Unwashed,  the  Spartan  youth, 
534. 

Uprisings,  the  ancient,  almost 
unknown  to  the  living  age, 
vii. ;  vague  evidence  of  their 
antiquity,  67,  note  2;  ancient 
strugles  and  strikes,  78 ;  in 
Attica,  141;  contagious,  146, 
and  note  3;  of  Eunus,  imme¬ 
diate  cause,  201 ;  at  Per- 
gamus,  232-245 ;  see  slave, 
wars  of  the. 

Urinatores  (divers),  112,  389, 
note  1,  435. 

Utica,  near  Carthage,  furnished 
elephants  against  Viriathus, 
186  and  plate. 

Utopia,  47,  note  1,  55. 

Utricularis  (bagpipe),  408. 

V 

Vacancy,  474  and  note  20. 


INDEX. 


687 


Vale  of  tears,  352. 

Varinius,  defeat  of,  297,  note 
54;  great  battle,  299;  and  of 
Pieenum,  300,  note  60. 

Varro  (Charis)  quoted,  291 
and  note  37. 

Vascula,  spits,  ladles,  cups, 
soup-spoons,  and  bowls,  399. 

Vascularii  (metal  vessel  mak¬ 
ers),  were  skilled  workmen, 
399,  and  446. 

Vatican,  the  ancient  works  lost 
in,  201,  207 ;  fragments,  300, 
note  60;  where  is  a  baxea  or 
ancient  shoe,  420. 

Vaulted  dome,  466;  firmament, 
538. 

Vectigalia,  means,  revenues, 
119  and  note  74;  system  of 
the,  156,  409;  see  tax  col¬ 
lection. 

V  leda,  303,  note  73. 

Vellejus  Paterculus,  his  ac¬ 
count  of  the  wars  of  Viria- 
thus  and  Spartacus,  187 ; 
Paterculus  on  numbers  of 
army  of  gladiators,  325,  note 
123. 

Vengeance,  of  Hermotius,  168- 
9,  note  7 ;  of  Rupillius,  227 ; 
intimidation  and,  of  Plato, 
244,  note  22 ;  irascibility 
and,  once  more  vindicated, 
269 ;  wreaking  infuriates. 
407;  549,  note  67;  of  Je¬ 
hovah,  566. 

Venison,  fish  and  mutton  the 
aristocratic  food,  386. 

Ventidius  Bassus,  consul,  79. 

Venus,  battle  of  the  hill  of,  183. 

Venusia  in  Lucania,  inscription 
of  perfumers  found  at,  434. 

Verna  or  home-born,  391. 

Verona,  inscription  of  wine 
commune,  382. 

Verres,  a  praetor  or  governor  of 
Sicily,  119,  note  74,  195,284; 
had  no  respect  for  humanity, 
1 79-80. 

Vesuvius,  the  then  peak  of,  293 ; 


height  of,  before  the  erup¬ 
tion,  293. 

Vessel-makers  ( Vascularii ) , 
445. 

Vetilus,  overthrown  and  killed 
by  Viriathus,  182,  note  6, 
184. 

Vexillum  or  semeion,  467 ;  was 
a  her  flag,  467,  note  5,476-7. 

Via,  the  Appian,  or  Appian 
Way,  293 ;  Way,  scene  of  the 
crucifixion  of  six  thousand 
working  people,  329;  Aquil- 
lia,  join  the  Appian  Way, 
was  taken  by  Spartacus,  293; 
Sacra,  P.  Nicanor  the  per¬ 
fumer,  on  the,  434. 

Vic,  Vic-le  Comte,  its  half-red 
banner,  489. 

Victualing  system,  389,  400. 

Vigano,  Prof.  Francesco,  447. 

Vineyard  of  the  Lord,  522. 

Vini  Susceptores,  393. 

Virgin  Mary  shown  on  red  flag, 
486. 

Virginia,  rape  of,  287,  note  32. 

Viriathus,  chapter  viii. ;  story 
of,  commenced,  179;  personal 
appearance  of,  180,  and  notes 
2,  3,  4 ;  was  a  poor  man, 
180;  collects  his  band,  181; 
speech  of,  182;  governor  of 
Spain,  182;  successful  re¬ 
treat  to  Tribola,  183;  defeats 
a  Roman  auxiliary  force  and 
Vetilius  killed,  184;  made 
king,  185;  destroys  the  forces 
of  Quinctius  and  iEmilius, 
186;  and  defats  Plautius, 
186;  defeats  Servilianus  at 
at  Eresane,  187 ;  makes  a 
treaty  of  peace  with  Rome, 
187 ;  held  Rome  in  check, 
188;  murdered  by  his  own 
men,  187 ;  great  gladiatorial 
wake,  188-9;  red  banner 
planted  in  the  land  of,  491 ; 
influence  of:  517. 

Vitellius,  emperor  of  Rome, 
79. 


688 


INDEX. 


Vlastos,  recent  discovery  by, 
91. 

Vogt,  Professor,  mentioned,  59, 
447. 

Yroice,  plaintive,  still  small 
523. 

Y^olsinii,  siege  of,  where  2,000 
statues  and  images  were 
taken,  431. 

Voodooism,  559. 

W 

Wages,  early  aversion  to,  39; 
slavery,  71;  in  time  of  Peri¬ 
cles,  124,  137;  slavery  fast 
going,  516,  note  50;  earners, 
as  Aristotle’s  4th  class,  540. 

Wagon-makers,  377,  note  10. 

Waiters  were  also  tasters,  399; 
and  cooks  of  Sparta,  533. 

Wakes,  antiquity  of,  135 ;  origin 
of,  277 ;  gladiatorial  in  honor 
of  Crixius’  ghost,  308,  note 
85. 

Wallace,  numbers  of  mankind, 

283,  note  17;  on  the  ancient 
census,  340,  note  17. 

Wanderers,  what  Gracchus 
said,  500. 

Want,  tie  that  married  irasci¬ 
bility  with  sympathy,  515. 

Wars,  slaves  used  as  mercena¬ 
ries  in,  77,  and  note  29 ;  the 
Holy,  81;  causes  of  the  so¬ 
cial  or  servile,  77,  84.  99;  be¬ 
tween  Messenia  and  Sparta, 
103;  Peloponnesian,  105;  dis¬ 
couraged  by  Numa,  123; 
strike  during  the  Pelopon¬ 
nesian,  134,  138,  142;  third 
Punic,  178 ;  of  Eunus — 
evidence  of  the  stones,  224, 
note  89;  brutal  purposes  of, 
475 ;  forbidden  in  the  plan 
of  Jesus,  563;  farmers  best 
fitted  for,  541,  542. 

Warning,  573. 

Warwick  and  Spartacus  com¬ 
pared,  327. 

Waterm  m,  383. 


Wealth,  of  Crassus,  340,  note 
17 ;  of  Cseliu3  Claudius,  340, 
note  17;  number  of  slaves 
owned  by  different  persons, 
350;  of  Damophilus,  196, 
sqq. ;  of  Demosthenes,  548; 
see  slave. 

Weavers  and  drapers,  416,  note 
8 ;  carders,  etc.,  and  their 
red  flag,  486. 

Wescher,  archaeologist,  506;  his 
theory  now  maintained,  506. 

Whips,  and  sacrificial  axe,  of 
Salvius,  264,  and  note  43; 
horsewhip  of  P.  Crassus,  242, 
note  20;  original  derivations, 
471. 

Whipped  every  night,  472,  note 
15;  and  strangled,  567;  men 
and  women,  for  the  “blessed” 
of  a  chosen  people,  568. 

White,  in  heathen  mythology, 
emblematic  of  degree,  466 ; 
essence  of  non-color,  480 ; 
and  red  were  essences  of 
color,  480;  see  chapter  on 
red  flag. 

W7ickliffe,  559. 

Wiener  Jahrbiicher,  article  on 
union  of  piscicapii,  389. 

Wife,  the  favorite,  often  buried 
alive  with  head  of  tne  house, 
82,  note  40;  of  Spartacus, 
558. 

Wild,  Mr.  <x.  L.,  piano  mer¬ 
chant  of  Washington,  posses¬ 
sor  of  a  curious  book  on 
Jesus  and  the  Essenes,  565, 
note  107 ;  slave  insurrection 
in  Chios,  164,  note  3;  beasts, 
men  thrown  into  dens  of, 
280 ;  beasts  i  n  the  amphi¬ 
theatres,  394,  395;  beasts, 

lions,  tigers,  leopards,  etc., 
for  the  combats,  411;  boar, 
story  of  L.  Domitius  and  the 
slave  who  killed  a,  136,  475. 

Will,  of  Kraton,  98,  note  27 : 
of  Attalus  III.  232,  333,  see 
testament. 


INDEX. 


689 


Wine-curers,  unions  of,  382, 
note  23 ;  smokers’  unions, 
383,  note  24,  384;  vaulters, 
447 ;  drinking,  false  notions 
regarding,  502 ;  presses, 
feasts,  505. 

Winter  quarters  of  Spartacus, 
300,  375. 

Witchcraft,  among  Egyptians, 
45;  and  fortune  telling,  414. 

Women,  paired  as  gladiators, 
277,  note  1;  constancy  of, 
303,  note  73;  in  politics  at 
Pompeii,  390-91,  and  notes  3, 
4,  5 ;  were  prominent  officers 
in  the  unions,  434 ;  took  their 
stand  in  the  unions  with 
dignity,  450;  as  members, 
461;  in  the  thiasos,  463. 

Wonder  world,  primitive  man 
in  the,  85;  of  the  ancient 
world,  248,  note  4 ;  and  awe 
caused  adoration  of  the  sun, 
469. 

Woodworkers  under  two  names, 
360;  workers  under  Augusta, 
362,  note  10. 

Work,  procured  by  the  unions, 
511. 

Workhouse,  274,  note  70;  pris¬ 
ons,  iron  of,  for  armor,  297, 
note  53. 

Workingmen,  number  massa¬ 
cred  at  Enna  and  Tauro- 
manian,  xii.;  number  cru¬ 
cified  by  Crassus,  and  Pom- 
pey,  xii. ;  not  originally 
citizens,  49 ;  condition,  low¬ 
liness  of,  in  ancient  times, 
49;  of  America  and  Europe 
combine  against  brute  force, 
57;  as  a  slave,  78;  figures 
little  in  history,  86;  societies 
of,  87;  political  institutions, 
no  court  of  appeals,  94;  as¬ 
sassinated,  98 ;  had  the  right 
to  organize,  100;  excluded 
by  Lycurgus,  101 ;  condition 
of,  in  Sparta,  103 ;  fought 
for  Sparta,  106:  murder  of 


2,000,  107,  note  46;  worked 
directly  for  the  government. 
114;  littleness  of  the  ancient, 
117;  Plato  against  the,  118; 
driven  from  the  crusade, 
131;  hated  Plato,  132;  pro¬ 
tected  by  gods,  142,  note  34; 
terrible  condition  of,  in 
Rome,  179;  cruel  treatment 
of,  causing  great  wars,  192; 
had  no  souls,  193 ;  as  a  class, 
how  formed,  528;  Jesus  in 
all  respects  one,  153,  514, 
551,  552,  and  560. 

Works  and  Days,  a  book  by 
Hesiod,  on  labor  question, 
161. 

Workshops  in  the  emperor’s 
palaces,  419. 

Worship,  in  raws  of  Lycurgus, 
69;  right  of,  70;  by  sacri¬ 
fice,  75;  of  gods,  81;  of  the 
Lord  by  his  children;  charac¬ 
ter  of,  at  Eleusis,  88;  im¬ 
portant  right  of,  115. 

WAeaths  and  ribbons,  463. 

Wyoming,  massacre  at,  102. 

X 

Xanthos,  a  slave,  builds  a  tem¬ 
ple,  143,  note  39. 

Xenocles,  a  master  mason,  131. 

Xenophon,  92,  135,  note  9;  and 
the  “imperishable  laws,” 
526;  quotes  Socrates,  553, 
note  76;  on  prayer,  563. 

Xipe,  gladiatorial  feasts  of,  278. 

Z 

Zama,  battle,  of,  152. 

Zend,  526. 

Zenoa,  in  love  with  the  girl 
trade  unionist,  464;  Aristotle 
borrowed  from,  518;  the 
stoic,  546. 

Zeus,  man-god,  48,  note  2; 
great  statue  of  the  Olym¬ 
pian,  101. 

Zeuxes,  and  Hermias,  slayers 
of  Damophilus,  204. 


•V 


-  ...  . 

.<■  - 

<  - 

' 


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7 


Date  Due 


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MAY  12 

JUL  6'37 

<§> 

BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  HEIGHTS 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS. 


Books  may  be  kept  for  two  weeks  and  may 
be  renewed  for  the  same  period,  unless  re¬ 
served. 

Two  cents  a  day  is  charged'  for  each  book 
kept  overtime. 

_  0 

If  you  cannot  find  what  you  want,  ask  the 
Librarian  who  will  be  glad  to  help  you.  -v  M 

The  borrower  is  responsible  for  books  drawn 
on  his  card  and  for  all  fines  accruing  on  the 

V 


same. 


